


Road to Paradise

by alicat54c



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alone, Alpha Peter Hale, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Good Peter, I found the adults, Magical Stiles Stilinski, Pack Feels, Season/Series 01, Sheriff Stilinski Finds Out, Sheriff Stilinski's Name is John, Werewolf Culture, Werewolf Isaac Lahey, because children should not be dealing with these things, but more like pre-magical, from a certain point of view, season one AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-17
Updated: 2017-10-30
Packaged: 2018-12-03 13:19:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 14
Words: 31,595
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11533065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alicat54c/pseuds/alicat54c
Summary: Once in the graveyard, Isaac had been bitten by a Rottweiler. It had lunged, teeth sinking into Isaac’s forearm, and shook its head, tearing the flesh to form a lasting scar.Whatever had him now, however, remained still. It growled, and Isaac could feel blood sliding sticky and warm across his skin, but it hadn’t moved. It seemed almost as bewildered as the teen as to what to do next....Season 1 AU, Isaac was bit instead of Scott.





	1. Isaac

…  
…ch1  
…

After his shift in the graveyard, Isaac Lahey decided to take a shortcut through the preserve back to his house. His father had been in a bad mood that morning, so he had left his books and homework in his locker, incase he needed to leave out the window to get to school on time again, so Isaac felt unencumbered enough to brave the tree roots and rabbits he imagined he would encounter. 

Overhead a full moon glowed, lighting the way. Isaac had left the last remaining flashlight in the shed with his shovel and working clothes. He didn’t want it to break like the last one he had brought home and accidentally left on the kitchen table in reach of his father.

Twenty minutes and a twisted ankle later, Isaac began to rethink his initial optimism. Sighing, he lifted himself off the ground, placidly imagining going after the root that had tripped him with his shovel and the back hoe.

Hoof beats pounded against the loam, and the teen threw his arms up to protect his head as a stampede of deer hurtled towards him. They were gone in an instant, fear hurrying their gate. Isaac made a note to check himself for ticks when he showered after lacrosse practice the next day; getting lyme disease again would not be fun. He had passed out with a fever at school, and the nurse had called his father. That had...not been good.

Limping to his feet, Isaac began to climb out of the ditch he had fallen into.

The forest reverberated with something thicker than silence, the deer’s hoof beats having faded, with nothing, not even the sound of insects, to replace them.

Straightening up, the teen looked around to get his bearings. Deciding to head to the right, where the trees looked thinner, he took a step, when-WHAM!

A dark heavy shape slammed teeth first into his side. Isaac bit his lip, instinctively holding back his cry of pain. 

Once in the graveyard, Isaac had been bitten by a Rottweiler. His father had told him to get rid of it or he would, and Isaac had run before the shotgun could be pulled out. The dog hadn’t understood why it was being backed into a corner, growling with its ribs in stark relief along its sides. It had lunged, teeth sinking into Isaac’s forearm, and shook its head, tearing the flesh to form a lasting scar.

Whatever had him now, however, remained still. It growled, and Isaac could feel blood sliding sticky and warm across his skin, but it hadn’t moved. It seemed almost as bewildered as the teen as to what to do next. So Isaac did what he had done with the Rottweiler, before his father’s shout had startled it into shaking its head and bolting.

“It’s ok,” he whispered, perhaps more to himself than the creature. His breaths came in ragged gasps, and the edges of his vision turned blurry. ‘It’s ok, just let go. It’s ok, it’s ok, it’s ok…”

Miraculously, the jaws loosened, and the beast pulled back. In the moments before darkness swallowed his vision into unconsciousness, Isaac swore it looked at him speculatively with red, red eyes. Though, perhaps, that was delirium brought on by blood loss.  
…

He woke up with his cheek pressed into the dirt, and a log twisting his neck at a spine cracking angle. Blinking up into the soft light filtering through the canopy, Isaac drifted in pre-waking amnesia.

With a gasp, he lurched upwards. His father would be so angry, he didn’t make it home last night! He didn’t make it home, because-

His hands snapped to his side, but instead of finding a festering bite, they met only smooth skin. Frowning, Isaac scratched at the dried blood crusting his body, and cementing his shirt to his side like a stiff piece of browning cardboard. Still no wound. He was sure he hadn’t imagined the huge...thing that had bit him.

Overhead, a bird twittered alarmingly, and the teen covered his ears. It sounded louder than the bell at school. 

Oh no.

Glancing up at the sky once more, Isaac estimated he had an hour before he was late for first period. Pink clouds still clung to the horizon, and he made his way east towards the sunrise. If he hurried, he would be able to take a quick shower in the locker rooms, maybe wash out his shirt so it wasn’t too stiff. Then he could wear one of the sweaters he had left in his locker over it to hide the stain.

He didn’t dare stop at his house. That would be...no, he would be putting that off for as long as he could. Besides, his father would be even more angry if Isaac missed school. Probably.

A minute into his jog, the scent of gasoline and exhaust drew the teen from the forest to the road. He wondered if someone’s car had explosively broke down, however, when he followed his nose, it did not appear as if any car had passed through since the night before, though the scent lingered. Pulling up his shirt to cover the lower half of his face, Isaac jogged up the road towards the center of Beacon Hills.

He made it record time, pleased to note that his usual collection of aches seemed to have taken a vacation from his joints. Perhaps, he mused, slipping past the custodians opening the front doors of the school, he should sleep out in the woods more often.

The thought bolstered him all the way through his first round of classes, right up until lunch. He sat in his usual corner, the heel of his hand pressed into the space between his eyes, where a headache was drilling to the center of his brain.

Food forgotten on his tray, despite his ravenous appetite, Isaac tried to will his way past the high electric buzzing which had taken over his hearing. The lights overhead flickered, and he grimaced as the buzzing redoubled.

“Dude, dude, dude! You’ll never guess what happened last night! They found a body in the preserve!” An excited hiss said, as if the speaker was screaming in his ear. 

Isaac flinched upright, eyes burning as they zoned in on two boy sitting on the other side of the cafeteria. One, with short hair, gesticulated excitedly, while his companion gazed dreamily off into the distance. Vaguely, Isaac recognized them from the lacrosse team.

“That new girl Alison, is so pretty dude,” the longer haired one replied. “Do you think she would go out with me?”

“You’re not even listening to me Scott!” the short haired one, Stilinski that was his name, hissed. “Body. Preserve. I only found out from my dad this morning that they already found the other half last night, otherwise I would have called you then!”

“I’ll totally get her attention at tryouts! I’ll get first line for sure this year!”

Stilinski sighed. “Sure you will. Did you remember your inhaler?” Scott fumbled, and Stilinski sighed again, moving to rummage in his own bag. “Seriously dude, what would you do without me?”

Isaac stood up, pushing his tray away. It smelled rank and moldy, like it had been left in the fridge too long. He dumped it into the trash can on his way out of the cafeteria. His next period was free, and they were only watching a movie in history class, so he didn’t think the teacher would miss him if he skipped. He could hide in the locker rooms until practice, and he might have some pain killers left in his locker. He usually saved those for days when his muscles were too sore or bruised to function, but his throbbing head seemed reason enough to pilfer his stash.

Later, on the field, Isaac almost felt back to normal. His vision zeroed in onto the ball, which he caught easily, and passed to another player. On the bench, he could hear Stilinski talking his friend Scott through his dour mood.

“I thought you did really well, up until you started trying to run out of the goal. Dude, you know Finstock puts you there because you very much DON’T have to run. You shouldn’t let Jackson get under your skin.”

“I made a fool of myself in front of Allison!” Scott moaned through his fingers, one hand fisted around his inhaler. 

“Dude, priorities!” Stilinski gesticulated wildly. “Not breathing kinda takes president over the new girl!”

“You wouldn’t be saying that if it were Lydia!” 

“Hey! I have a ten year plan! And I think I did pretty good! Sorry bud, but if it comes down to it, I’m rooting for me to get onto the field instead of joining you on the bench this year.”

“Maybe we’ll both just be on reserve again?”

The ball sailed across Isaac’s vision, and his attention snapped back to the field.

“Nice hustle Lahey!” Coach called from the sidelines.

Isaac felt a small grin touch his lips.  
…

His good mood evaporated once he opened the door to his home.

“Where were you last night?” His father was seated in his recliner, a newspaper unconcernedly in his hands.

Isaac froze, immediately hunching his shoulders and averting his gaze to the carpeting. “I got back late from the graveyard.”

The newspaper folded, crinkling paper like an avalanche. “I didn’t see you this morning either.”

“I left early.”

The lamp on the end table smashed to the floor, plunging the room into evening twilight. “Don’t you lie to me!”

Isaac flinched back, legs collapsing as his arms rose to protect his head. The room dimmed in his awareness, mind fleeing into white noise. Then, he felt himself dragged down the stairs to the basement. Then what little light remained was snapped away with the slam of a refrigerator.

All he could hear was his own breathing, and the fevered pulse of his heart. Mold and red iron clogged his nose. He whimpered, the first sound he had made since answering his father’s questions, escaped his throat. He clawed at the creeping walls boxing him in. His nails seemed longer, sharper, scoring the metal more deeply than they ever had before, yet still not enough to dig him free. 

The whimper sliced from his throat again, louder, higher, morphing into a wailing howl.

-please, please, please- Brother? Mommy? Someone? I’m here! I’m alive! I’m hurting! I’m alone. I’m scared. Help. Help me? Dad. Daddy, please let me out! Please, Daddy, help me! It’s dark, I’m scared! I can’t breathe! Daddy, help me! -please, please, please-

Dimly, Isaac heard his father shouting, probably for him to stop making so much noise. Isaac tried to press his lips closed over his cries, but his teeth seemed too big in his mouth. Through the beating thunder of his heart, he thought he could hear the shattering of wood and glass. Too big to be just the table. Maybe his father had thrown something through the wall?

More shouting, cut violently short. Feet on the stairs, heavy, lumbering.

Then-

Isaac blinked, the dim light of the basement too much for his eyes, after enforced darkness. He didn’t move, letting his vision adjust, waiting for his father to speak. To let him know whether he could get out, or...not.

The silence stretched too long. Isaac’s fingers twitched, digging jagged points where they pressed into his chest. He risked looking sideways, just the barest movement of his eyes.

Holding open the claw marked lid of the refrigerator was a man with half a face. 

Isaac turned his head completely, eyes wide. 

Scar tissue twisted his impassive look into a villain-esque sneer, and his hair was wild and thin on one side, as if neglected for half a decade. Isaac raised a hand to his own mouth, and felt fangs which match those in the stranger’s.

Red glowing eyes bore into Isaac’s, and, instead of panic, the teen felt his pulse calm.

A scarred hand tipped with yellowing claws reached towards him, grasping the scruff of his sweater and shirt to pull him from the prison. Isaac went limp as a kitten, instinctively tucking his legs up to miss the rim of the steel box. The stranger set him gently on the floor, then, pointedly, ripped the door of the refrigerator box from its hinges with a flick of his wrist. It banged against the basement wall like a cymbal. 

Isaac sat on the floor, limbs pulled close to his body in a loose hug. Tremors occasionally jolted through his limbs, but his terror was fading faster than he ever could recall it doing before.

He licked his lips, tasting the tips of pointed fangs, unsure whether he was allowed to speak. “Who- who are you?” He tightened his hold around himself, surprised at his own boldness.

The stranger blinked, as if emerging from a great depth. Red eyes focused squarely on Isaac, and a tiny furrow, as if he was confused at who he was seeing, crossed his brow, before being smoothed over. 

“I am your alpha.”

Isaac flexed his fingers, averting his gaze. “What does that mean?” His fangs lisped over the words.

“It means that I’m the one who turned you into a werewolf, and you are in my pack.”

Isaac’s eyes snapped back to the strangers. His hands clenched to fists, and he faintly felt his palms cut open, and the tang of blood permeated the air. He looked down at his hands, examining his claws for the first time. As he watched the cuts on his palm closed, and he noticed the usual bruises from his father’s anger were absent.

When he looked up once more, the stranger was watching him, head tilted slightly. His fangs were gone, and Isaac noticed he was wearing white scrubs, torn and stained with blood and dirt.

“I’m like you?” His voice sounded small, coming from an even smaller place in the depths of the teen’s heart.

“Yes.”

“Is my dad…?”

“He was hurting you. He won’t again.”

Isaac looked to the floor, limbs drawing tight around himself. His dad...had his problems, but he had his good days too. Less now, but he was his dad, and- and-

The alpha crouched in front of him, soothing a clawed hand through his curls. “It’s all right.

Isaac turned into the motion instinctively, a high whine breaking from his throat.

“It’s all right, I’ve got you,” the stranger crooned again. “Now, what’s your name?”

Isaac opened his eyes, not realizing he had closed them. Blinking back blurriness, he met the stranger’s gaze. “Isaac. My name’s Isaac Lahey.”

Something soft crossed the stranger’s face, lingering at the corners of his mouth. “My son’s middle name was Ishmael.” A shadow clouded the alpha’s face, and he stood, taking Isaac with him.

“My name is Peter. We should get you cleaned up. It’s a school night, and you still smell like blood. Come on.”  
…


	2. Isaac and Peter

…

The next morning when Isaac crept down the stairs, Peter was sitting at the kitchen table reading the newspaper his father had discarded the night before. The entire first floor was still a mess, with the door smashed where Peter had charged in the night before and the pieces broken furniture only roughly pushed into the corners, but the scent of blood had been covered with bleach, and his father’s body removed.

The paper folded, revealing Peter’s burnt face. “Good morning.”

Isaac hesitated on the landing. “Good morning...alpha.”

Peter’s smile, if anything, widens. “Where are you things? Don’t you have school today?”

Emboldened by his alpha’s reception, Isaac walked into the kitchen and opened the fridge for some orange juice. “I leave it in my locker, in case…uh.”

He busied himself pouring two glasses, leaving one on the table while he chugged his own. He would have to go shopping soon. His eyes flickered to his alpha, who had returned to the paper, sipping from the glass.

“Um.” The teen fiddled with his fingers, plucking at the edges of his sleeves. 

Peter looked up, blue eyes askant. “Yes?”

Isaac took a breath. “What, um. What do you want? From me, I mean. Why did you bite me?” He had seen enough werewolf movies to connect the beast that had bit him with the man who had saved him.

Folding the paper and laying it on the table, Peter turned his full attention on the teen. “I bit you, because I need help.”

Isaac sat straight in his chair, listening intently. 

“My family and lived here for generations. We never hurt anyone. Then, during our pack reunion, hunters came and trapped us inside of our home, before burning it to the ground.” Peter’s blue eyes watched intently, though his posture looked relaxed. “I was in a coma, until recently, and to get revenge, I need a pack.”

A chasm opened up in the pit of Isaac’s stomach, and the implications of what Peter said about his son the night before struck a chord in his chest. He set his jaw, resolutely refusing to drop his alpha’s gaze.

A smile twist its way across the other werewolf’s face.

“As for what I want.” Peter pet a hand across Isaac’s curls. “We’re family now Isaac, and I’m not letting anyone hurt my family again.”  
…

Isaac drifted through the next few days, school passing in a blur as he accustomed himself to his new state of being. Wednesday after lacrosse practice was spent cleaning the house. The door was a lost cause, but a quick trip to the store and borrowing the graveyard’s truck fixed that quickly. 

As usual, the neighbor’s made no comment as to the loud noises emanating from the Lahey household, though Isaac tended to chock that up to Old Lady May’s deafness. Like many houses in Beacon Hills, the forest backed his house, creating a cover of privacy the teen had never appreciated until now.

Peter, who had taken over the master bedroom, slept through the repairs, only descending into the swept clean kitchen when Isaac warmed up some chicken dinners in the microwave.

“Remind me to teach you how to properly cook,” the alpha said. “Werewolves need more to eat than cardboard.”

Isaac ducked his head to hide his pleased smile. Talk of being taught how to cook only meant that his alpha would be staying long enough to teach him. 

Thursday saw Isaac at the store, the last bills from the his father’s desk used to buy a rotisserie chicken. His paycheck from working at the graveyard was directly deposited in his father’s account, and Isaac didn’t know how to access it. 

When he voiced his concerns, hesitantly, over dinner, Peter patted his head, and told him he would take care of it.

Friday morning was marked with a letter from the bank with a new debit card in Isaac’s name. Peter only smiled when the teen stammered a thank you, drowsily munching on a piece of toast.

He called out when Isaac was about to head out the door for school. “Tonight is the full moon. I want to take you hunting in the preserve.”

A bubble of happiness bloomed in the teen’s chest. His returning smile showed teeth.  
…

The full moon was indescribable, and not simply because Isaac can’t remember most of the night. 

He recalls becoming more antsy as the sun set, pacing the bare first floor of the house. Peter, already intimidatingly tall with his features stretched into a canid sneer, gripped him by the scruff of his shirt and dragged him into the preserve, just as Isaac was considering ripping through the walls himself.

Then they were running, stars providing more than enough light until the moon rose above the horizon of mountains in the distance. Isaac skittered across the loam, stalking a rabbit, then nearly treed himself leaping after a squirrel. 

Peter hooked a claw into his sweater to tug him back to the ground. The teen growled ineffectually, but fell into line as his alpha began to stalk through the underbrush. He tried to copy the older wolf’s silent steps, and winced whenever he cracked a twig or leaf underfoot. Maybe if he went barefoot like Peter?

A nudge to his shoulder brought him to a stop, and he lifted his face to scent the air. 

“Deer?” He didn’t know how he knew the scent, but that was the first image to leap to mind when his nose picked it up.

A low huff, then Peter was directing him through through the trees once more. In the back of Isaac’s mind, he could almost trace his alpha breaking off, telling the younger wolf to keep running forwards to flush their prey out. 

Hunt singing in his veins, Isaac let out a whooping howl, which reverberated through the trees.

-hunt, hunt, hunt- Play? I’m here! Play with me? Where are you? I’m here! -hunt, hunt, hunt-

A low lumbering growling howl, which sent shivers down the teen’s spine, echoed back.

-teach, hunt, prey- I’m here. Keep straight. -pride, pack, kill-

Isaac dropped to all fours, mouth gaping over teeth too big for a human jaw. Up ahead he heard the deer- the doe- prey- already disturbed from the howls, frantically try to change direction in its sprint. 

Together the wolves herded it deeper into the forest, deftly cantering over roots and branches, while the deer’s scent grew sour with fear and foaming sweat.

A tug in the back of Isaac’s mind had him skid to the side, while his alpha shot ahead to cut off their meal’s escape. Terrified, the deer reared back, exposing its long neck.

Isaac leapt in for the kill, teeth sinking deep into flesh.

When the deer stopped twitching, he let go. At his side, his alpha thrummed with pleased pride, maw bared to show off teeth longer than a hand span.

Isaac grinned wolfishly, shirt stained with the blood dripping down his neck.

However, before the two could enjoy a dinner well hunted, a shot rang out.

Peter’s head snapped up, a growl rumbling from deep in his throat, teeth bared. 

However, Isaac could feel his alpha’s exhaustion, even at such a short run. The younger wolf pressed a palm to a furry shoulder, willing whatever energy he could spare to help his pack mate.

A red eye rolled to watch him, satisfaction causing Isaac’s fingers to tingle. 

After that the night became blurry. Perhaps it was simply because it was his first full moon, or the amount of energy he siphoned off to his alpha, but the next clear thing Isaac knew was waking up on his back porch, mouth tasting of copper.

He blinked blearily, hands feeling over the holes ripped in his shirt as he got to his feet. He could see the old lady next door scowl at him through the curtains, but he ignored her in favor of going inside.

Upstairs he heard Peter’s slow breathing, and the back of his mind burbled with annoyance and lethargy. 

Isaac looked in the fridge, and decided to make his alpha a ham sandwich for when he woke up.

That, as it turned out, was not to happen until that evening. 

Isaac had been doing his homework at the newly bought kitchen table, still mildly bewildered at doing homework in his actual home, when Peter teetered down the stairs.

“It seems I’m not back up to full strength just yet,” he said, when Isaac helped him to a seat.

“Is there anything I can do to help?” he said, clearing his books away, and pulling food from the fridge.

The alpha squeezed his shoulder once before letting go. “Oh, you’re doing more than enough.”

Isaac nodded, suddenly feeling light headed, and leaned back against the counter.  
…

The week passed in more of a blur than the previous. All the surplus energy Isaac had since receiving the bite seemed to drain away, leaving the teen barely able to keep his eyes open long enough to stumble up the stairs after work, and collapsing onto his bed.

He found himself nearly snapping at a gaggle of girls chittering near his locker on Monday, their high voices like an ice pick to his lethargic mind. His eyes burned, his gums hurt, and he had to seclude himself in the locker room for an entire period while he recollected himself, dozing fitfully until the bell rang.

In contrast, Peter had become more aware since the full moon. He was able to stay awake for more than a handful of hours at a time, though he still slept deeply through most of the day. He claimed he was still healing from being in a coma for so long, but Isaac couldn’t help but worry. 

The teen’s fraying emotions reached their breaking point on Tuesday, when he arrived back from work to an empty house.

Usually Isaac had no trouble picking his alpha’s heartbeat through the walls, and the stillness, broken only by a family of squirrels in the chimney, set a weight into the pit of his gut.

“Alpha?” he called, climbing the stairs to check rooms his senses told him were empty. Peter’s scent hung in the master bedroom, and in the kitchen, but seemed faded elsewhere in the house.

A cold sweat beaded its way along Isaac’s brow, and he twisted his clawed fingers into the sleeves of his sweater.

“Alpha?” he called again, voice breaking as he descended the stairs to the basement.

The refrigerator chest sat broken in the middle of the cluttered space, a layer of grime already settling atop it. Everything was just as it had been left the night that- the night his father- 

A bout of dizziness left him clutching the railing, black spots spasming across his vision as he sunk to the floor. His breaths came in stuttering gasps, and a high wailing whine screamed from the back of his throat.

-fear, fear, fear- Alpha? Alpha? Where are you? -fear, fear, fear-

Gently, a hand brushed his curls, familiar claws scraping his scalp.

Isaac gasped, arms huddled close to his body, and opened his eyes.

Peter crouched beside him, expression caught hovering just above fond annoyance. “There you are. You’ve been howling for a while now.” He sighed, hands dropping to his rest on his bent knees. “What am I going to do with you?”

Isaac followed the retreating hand. “You were gone.” His throat hurt.

“Unfortunately, I’ve had to re-arrange several factors of my plan. I didn’t anticipate you calling me being so.” He flexed his fingers. “Persuasive.”

The teen ducked his head. “I’m sorry.”

Peter smiled, scars on his face twisting half his face to a grimace. “Don’t be. I’m much stronger than I would be. Losing the element of surprise is more than a fair trade for a loyal beta.”

The alpha’s tone shifted. “But I have more things to worry about than you, so I can’t be here all the time.”

Isaac looked up. “Let me go with you then. I can help!”

Peter’s smile was all teeth. “You will. Soon, but not yet. A hunter must learn when to lure out his prey, and the bait’s barely been set.” A clawed hand wrenched through his curls, and Isaac leaned into the touch, transfixed. “But when the time comes, you’ll be right there beside me when we kill the ones responsible for destroying our pack.”  
…  
…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> …
> 
> A/N:
> 
> IDK how Peter got the bank to act so fast in giving Isaac a new debit card. It’s the most difficult thing to believe in this fic.
> 
> I like the idea of the alpha-beta bond going both ways. So while Peter might be able to siphon energy off his betas, he also is compelled to go after them when they call for help, like when Derek went after Scott that time he howled in cannon.


	3. Isaac

…

On Friday, Coach caught him napping on the bench before practice, and told him to, “Get home and rested up before the big game tomorrow, I’m not letting Greenberg be your replacement Lahey!”

Stilinski and Scott pass him as he staggered back to the locker room.

“Other than the murder vibe he had going, he was totally hot. Would oggle again,” the Sheriff’s son was babbling. 

“Why were you creeping on this guy at the station, anyway?” Scott said, rolling his eyes. 

Stilinski pressed a hand to his chest. “You wound me! I was simply there to give my father a healthy chicken salad for lunch! If I happened to hear more about that murder case with the two halves of a dead body, then that’s totally not my fault!” His tone sobered. “It sucks that it was the guy’s sister though. I mean, he can’t have that much family left, and having to identify a body right when your uncle goes missing too-”

Isaac pressed his forehead to the cool metal of his locker, willing his senses to dull. In the back of his mind, he could feel his alpha’s preoccupation as he mulled over some task in a vaguely northward direction. 

Sensing his attention, Peter sent a half thought of calmness back to the teen, though it seemed muddled under a sharp heat Isaac didn’t want to approach.

Pushing himself away from his locker, Isaac stumbled home. He would call in sick to work. They wouldn’t mind, as Isaac mostly worked in maintenance of plants and headstones, and only rarely with actual grave digging.

He didn’t notice the dark figure watching from the tree line, eyes flashing blue.  
...

Later that evening, Isaac awoke with his arm pushed between the couch cushions, and and an imprint of his sweater’s patterning pressed against his cheek.

Peter sat nearby, one hand holding a mug of tea, while the other turned the pages of a book propped up on his knee.

“Good morning,” he said, not looking up from his book.

Slowly. Isaac rose to a mildly more vertical position. His nose twitched at the scent of dust and old vellum. “What are you reading?” 

“It’s a ritual on how to raise the dead.”

Isaac blinked, more awake. “We can do that?”

“Under certain circumstances.” Peter turned another page.

“Oh.” The teen rubbed at his eye, then let his fingers fiddle in his lap. He glanced back up at his alpha, swallowed, and looked back down. He worried a loose thread in his sleeve, before snapping it with a sharp claw. He looked up again, and nearly jumped when two ice blue eyes stared back at him.

“Is there something you want to tell me?”

Isaac flushed, chin nearly colliding with his breast bone as he ducked his head. “I, um.” His claws flexed against his knees. “I have a lacrosse game, um, tomorrow. Do you, um.” He stared fixedly at a spot on the carpet. “Do you want to come see me play?”

The book closed with a musty thump.

“I can’t be seen by anyone, as technically I am a missing coma patient.”

Isaac squeezed his palms together.

“But this is important to you,” Peter’s words sounded like honey. “And I have other business I need to attend to at the school anyway. I won’t be able to watch for long, though.”

A knot untied itself in the beta’s chest. “Really? You’ll come?”

Peter’s smile twisted. “Of course.”  
…

Isaac had not anticipated being excited about playing in a game, since his brother died. When his brother had left for the military and died… well, Isaac never expected his father to come to any of his games. He woke at dawn and dashed around the preserve to bleed off the excess energy boiling over in his core, so like the last full moon. However, he still found himself jittery, even as he pulled on his gear with the other players in the locker room.

“You down an espresso before this Lahey?” One of the other boys, Danny, asked, wide grin splashed across his face.

A small smile crossed Isaac’s face at the ribbing. “My, uh, dad’s coming to see the game.”

Behind Danny, a line of tension fissured its way across Jackson’s back, and he glanced up from tying on his shoes. “Are you going to be ok?” the blonde said, then caught himself by adding, “I’m not letting you make us lose the game, just because you’re too hyped up.”

“I’m fine,” Isaac huffed, shoving on his shoulder pads.

Out on the field, the young werewolf scanned the stands, lifting his head to the wind to try and scent the air filtering through the guard of his helmet.

Too many bodies crowded together in a miasma of salt and copper, and he had to exhale sharply, lest he gag. In the slight shadow of his helmet, his eyes glowed as he searched the stands again, to no avail.

A lead weight began to settle in the pit of his stomach, but, there, a silver thread pulled his awareness to the woods bordering the field. A figure in black skulked in the tree line closest to the stands. Isaac narrowed his eyes, scenting the air on his tongue. The stranger smelled of wolf, but…

“Lahey, get your head in the game!” Coach yelled from the sidelines.

Isaac raised his lacrosse stick just in time to catch the ball, and pass it off to Danny. 

On the bench, Scott puffed on his inhaler, having been traded out for Stilinski half way through the first round. Stilinski, meanwhile, flailed across the field like a mad starling, doing his part to distract and block the oncoming opponents. 

When the ball found its way to Isaac again, a burly offensive player charged him. The teen dug his toes into the turf, prepared to meet the blow, when Stilinski darted sideways into the guy’s guard. In the second it took the guy to knock Stilinski away, Isaac shifted his weight, and lobbed the ball into the net.

The whistle sounded. A spark of camaraderie fizzled in the back of Isaac’s pumping heart- hunt, pack, fight- and he gave a nod to Stilinski as the players lined back up. The other teen beamed through his heaving breaths, sweat pouring down his face.

When the next round began, Danny immediately tossed the ball to Isaac, as per Coach’s hissed instructions when he discovered exactly how far Isaac could throw it. Like before, the same guy barreled down the turf, zeroing in on Isaac before he could throw.

Stilinski darted forwards again, heart hammering, breath coming in stuttered gasps to defend his teammate. However, this time, the guy was expecting him. A meaty shoulder rammed the skinny teen into the dirt.

Isaac saw red, barely hearing the ref’s whistle, as he charged. The opposing player fell too easily, an arm slammed across his chest as the wolf curled over his fallen teammate. Pained gasps stuttered out of Stilinski’s chest. Isaac pressed a hand to his shoulder, where the padding had shaken loose through playing, exposing a slip of skin.

Black lines traced their way up the werewolf’s arm as he tried to identify the other’s source of pain. Stilinski gasped again, this time in surprise instead of hurt, eyes wide behind his mask where they met Isaac’s. Pulling back, Isaac slammed his eyes shut, willing the glow to recede. His hands curled close to his chest. What was that?  
…

The question haunted his mind all through the rest of the game. Coach benched him before the last round, and Jackson scored the winning goal. 

Stilinski had been hurried away to the nurse’s office, ice pack on his ankle. His friend Scott had been concerned, but seemed to forget his friend when Coach let him play for a round in his place.

When he returned home late in the evening, he burrowed into the couch cushions, listening to himself breath.

In the back of his mind, he felt his alpha’s low burning satisfaction draw closer. Twenty minutes later, the door clicked open.

“Alpha-“ Isaac started to say, but the words stuck in his throat.

Standing beside Peter was a pale man with dark spiked hair. His face would have been handsome, if not for the dark scowl twisting his mouth into a murderous line.

“This is my nephew Derek,” Peter said, clapping a hand on the guy’s leather clad shoulder. Derek glared, jaw clenched. Isaac unconsciously took a step back. “I found him skulking the woods outside the school during the game.”

Both wolves looked scuffed, though the ripped shreds of shirt still clinging to Derek’s shoulders and the scent of red copper permeating his person, implied that Peter’s finding of him did not end in his favor.

“He’s agreed to be a part of our pack.”

A muscle ticked in Derek’s jaw, and his glower intensified.

Isaac ducked lower behind the back of the couch.  
…

Sunday morning saw the teenager creeping down the staircase. He made it to the landing, before noticing the statuesque figure hunched over the kitchen table, but before he could turn around back to the sanctuary of his room, Derek looked up.

Isaac froze as hazel eyes fixed on him, and he could practically imagine the rabid growl rumbling silently in the other wolf’s throat.

“Get down here,” Derek barked.

Isaac nearly fell down the last flight of steps, the tone sending a shard of ice through his gut. He slid into a seat at the table, careful to keep his back to the more open living room in case he needed to leap away. 

“I saw you play last night.”

Isaac nodded, barely a jolt of his head.

“You need to be more careful with using your powers in public, hunters could have seen.”

“Sorry.”

“You shouldn’t take the pain of humans not involved with us either, it could raise suspicion.”

“I- what?” Isaac’s eyes flicked to meet Derek’s, before skittering to the side. “Is that what I did?”

Derek’s glare was murderous, though his clenched jaw seemed to imply he was holding himself back. “Hasn’t Peter told you anything?”

Isaac shook his head, eyes flickering from the table to the other wolf’s face.

Derek huffed out a growl. “Don’t do that! You’re a werewolf, start acting like it!”

“Sorry.” The teen’s shoulders hunched close to his ears.

Derek growled again, tone forced level as he pulled himself back. “Look, I’m not going to attack you.”

“Ok.” Isaac’s voice was quiet.

A sigh escaped the other wolf, and the line of tension in his back tucked itself away. “Hey,” Derek’s voice matched Isaac’s in pitch. “I’m not going to hurt you. We’re,” he breathed in, then let it out again, “We’re pack.”

Isaac fiddled with his fingers under the table, face turned away as he nodded.

Suddenly, Derek’s chair screeched across the linoleum as he stood. Isaac flinched back, but all the other werewolf did was pull his jacket on.

“Come on, we’re getting breakfast.”

Isaac unclenched his fists, feeling the claw shaped wounds in his palms heal over.

Derek threw a scarf and jacket at him from a hook by the door. “You might not feel the temperature like a human, but you should still wrap up when it gets cold.” 

Isaac ran the scarf through his fingers, a phantom memory of a similar innocuous piece of fabric tightening around his throat as his father used it to pull him down the basement stairs.

The memory evaporated, as flaring red eyes and sharp teeth tore it to ribbons. He didn’t have to be afraid of that any more.

He glanced up at Derek, who was fishing around in his pocket for car keys.

His pack mate was right, Isaac was a werewolf. The fibers of the scarf strained as he pulled it taut t between his hands, ready to rend it with barely a fraction of his full strength.

The door banged open. “Hurry up,” Derek growled, though that could have just been an inherent quality of his voice.

“Coming,” Isaac said, and threw the scarf around his neck.  
…  
…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N:  
> I have so many fun headcanons for Peter.
> 
> Ishmael was Isaac’s brother in the Bible, so the names are related to one another.
> 
> Ugg, this show is so objectively bad, why am I writing fanfiction for it?


	4. Derek

…

Often, Derek wondered how he got where he was.

Not here now, limping his way out of the woods. He vividly recalled the hunter surprising him when he went to the burnt out shell of his home to greet old ghosts. He had wanted to feel closer to his mother, to his family, Peter’s offer whispering in the back of his mind. But, here now, as in back in the town which took everything from him, only to prove that he still had something left to lose.

Was it only a month ago when Laura stopped answering his calls?

She had taken her camaro driving across the country, wanting to check in with a few packs across the state. She wanted to rebuild, she said, and it was about time Derek settled down.

Derek knew that being the brother of the alpha meant he had certain obligations to the pack, but when it was just the two of them, he forgot that he was expected to marry for alliances and train the pups when they came of age. He had sealed all of those memories away, because whenever he thought of his place, all he could think was that he had no right to replace his uncle.

Peter was the one to teach him and his siblings to hunt and howl, the one who courted a foreign wolf from a strong pack into marrying him, the one who he left abandoned to die in a hospital bed surrounded by humans.

He- he couldn’t be that. He could barely be himself without feeling like the fire had scorched his insides, leaving only a hollow shell.

But Laura had been insistent, fierce in her plans to the point where dissent was disregarded as impossible.

So Derek had begun to pack up their apartment in the Brooklyn, phone within easy reach.

But then- But then-

But then Laura’s phone went directly to answering machine on the second day, and he threw everything the movers hadn’t yet put into storage into a duffle bag and hopped the soonest flight back to the west coast.

He took an Uber from San Francisco, and blatantly refused to look at the sign welcoming him back to Beacon Hills when it flashed by the window.

He found Laura’s car parked outside of a motel room, a ticket under the wiper and a boot on the front wheel. When he went to the Sheriff’s office to pay his ticket, (explaining how his sister was missing, and that was her car, and could he please be allowed to drive it away?), he was gently escorted to a back room. 

Derek did not remember much more from that day, other than the scent of his sister’s decaying corpse.

He didn’t know how much later it was that he heard the howling.

His pulse picked up, his eyes lifted to the full moon, and he knew there was another werewolf in Beacon Hills. Also, as he found out that night, there were hunters.

He was not shot then, but it was a close call.

It was luck, and no small amount of loneliness, that drove him to the school during the sports match. He had been hiding in the preserve since the full moon, trying to piece together his sister’s murder and wrestle her body from the coroner’s office. 

The sounds of life and the spice of excitement drew him to the edge of the trees, images of sitting in those very stands to cheer on his sister playing soccer pinching the edges of his memory.

One of the players was tackled on the field, and his teammate leapt upon the attacker with an audible snarl. Derek was half a heartbeat from leaping onto the field to contain the wayward teen wolf, when a voice stopped him.

“Hello nephew.”

“What are you doing Peter?” Derek hissed, when the shock of seeing his uncle (scarred, twisted) awake had bled away.

“I’m getting revenge for our family, of course.” Peter’s eyes flashed red. 

White rage shot through Derek’s heart. “You killed Laura!”

His charge was cut short by a claw catching his arm and slamming him into the trunk of a tree. The wood groaned along with his bones.

“Your form’s gotten sloppy. I’m disappointed.” Derek’s heart beating feverishly in his chest, not daring to struggle, lest those claws at his throat press home. “As for the situation with…Laura. I have it handled.”

“Handled!?” Derek’s roar would have been heard by the fans in the stands, had it not sounded like his windpipe was being crushed. “You killed her!”

“Yes, I killed her!” Peter’s voice was a hissing snarl. “Because my own pack abandoned me to be trapped in my own thoughts for nearly a decade! So when I became well enough to stumble out of my ward on the full moon, still hearing the screams of my children, your siblings, /my alpha/, and carved revenge on every beast I slaughtered, why wouldn’t I attack the first strange wolf I saw? And the fact it was an alpha only made me heal fast enough to avoid the hunters baring down on the both of us.”

Bones ground sickeningly against each other. “So yes, Derek. I have it handled.”

Peter threw him to the forest floor.

“I didn’t-“ Derek’s voice choked on his rage, his shame, the unhowled scream clawing in the back of his being. 

“No, you didn’t.” Peter’s visage twisted, not simply from shadows. “We will have our revenge, and then, afterwards, we will rebuild our pack.”

“What are you going to do?”

Peter laughed, a mockery of lighter times. “I’m going to kill every last one of them, of course.”

“What?” Derek’s heart beat a staccato against his breast bone. Fantasies he had buried over ashes flooded to the forefront of his mind. He tasted blood on his teeth.

“Why not? They killed us first, and they would kill us last if they could.”

Peter was right, Peter was always right. This was- this was-

But Laura-

But Peter was all he had left.

Derek took a breath. “What do you want me to do?”  
…

The new beta was more mouse than wolf, and Derek had to wonder what Peter was thinking when he turned him. Then he wondered whether Peter was thinking at all, still caught between the madness of his illness and being an alpha without a pack. Then Derek stopped thinking before the bile could travel any further up his throat.

“Take care of our pack,” Peter had told him, but what did Derek know about taking care of anyone?

Derek couldn’t even protect the pack he once had, even when that wasn’t his job.

He shook his head. Best not to think of that right now.

After introducing Derek to Isaac, Peter had left through the front door, to do what the beta did not want to imagine. Isaac had shown the older wolf to one of the rooms on the second floor. It smelled like dust, and like the faded memories of someone long gone. Isaac had mumbled something about the room having belonged to his brother, before retreating to let Derek settle in.

Derek pointedly did not ask about the scents of an older man which lingered in corners of the house, nor the telling stench of bleach which wiped any traces of him on the first floor. He thought to confront Peter about it, but after following his nose to the basement, realized he might like the answer too much.

Derek stumbled through the door of Isaac’s house, a breath he didn’t know he had been holding escaping his lungs in a great gasp. Peter called this place their new den, and Derek had lost the ability to tell when his uncle was being sarcastic. He had lost a lot of things over the last six years.

Clinging the stairs, he paused on the top of the landing.

Derek stood in the doorway of the younger wolf’s room, door barely open enough for him to see the curled up form through the crack. He could hear the teen’s fluttering heart, his claws punching holes into his sheets as he dreamed. He sounded like a strong wind would blow him away. Derek couldn’t be responsible for his well being- anything Derek has ever tried to take care of has- has-

He took his hand off the door handle before the metal could warp.

No. He had to try. He had nothing else but his crazed uncle and this pup. 

He didn’t notice the yellow eye following him in the dark as he shut the door and limped down the hall. The mattress in the third bedroom creaked as Derek settled down to rest, waiting for the arrow shot through his thigh to heal.

In the morning he would tell Peter about the growing number of hunters in the preserve. 

He would protect his pack or die.

He couldn’t live with the third option any more.  
…

“They must be getting sloppy, if it took them this long to start doing regular patrols through the forest.” 

Derek glowered at his uncle over a cup of coffee. Isaac had already left for school, a quick brushing of shoulders with his alpha and a mildly less wary than before look at the new member of his pack, before rushing out the door. 

“You already knew.”

Peter shook his head. “No, I expected it. Your mother never let us hunt excessively on the preserve, because that's one of the first signs a hunter looks for to signal a pack’s presence. With all the bodies I was leaving, they should have been here days ago.” He took a sip of his tea. “Though I suppose the Argents might be getting lax. Is Girard even still alive?”

Derek hunched over his mug. 

“Did you recognize any of the hunters?”

He hunched further. A flash of blond hair clouded his vision, and his breath hitched. “No.”

“Let me know if you do. Some of the Argents have already set up camp, but I want the whole clan here.” Peter hummed, setting down his mug. “I was about ready for the next stage in the plot anyway.” 

“What are you going to do?” Derek’s eyes darted up, in time to catch the feral grit of teeth slice his uncle’s face.

“Kill them, of course.”  
…

Later, Derek lay in bed, visions of blood dancing behind his eyes.

He knew Peter wasn’t sending flashes of his activities to the pack on purpose; if he wanted Derek or Isaac there, he would have told them. It reminded the beta of when he was young, and woke in the night with dreams of a burning warehouse and dying howls of another pack in his head. His mother had arrived many hours later, reeking of smoke and burning fur, and explained that sometimes an alpha might accidentally send things through the pack bonds when they were scared or angry.

A man on a bus screams, and Derek turned his face into the pillow.

Quietly, in the hall outside, a pair of feet tiptoed across the plush carpet. They hesitated outside his door, breath stilling as if trying to listen and determine whether the occupant inside was asleep.

“I know you’re out there.” Derek’s voice was more gruff than he intended, even in a whisper. 

Isaac’s heart rate ratcheted up. “Sorry, I’ll just-”

“What do you want?”

Derek could practically hear the teen hunch his shoulders, curling in and into himself as if it might make him disappear. “Nothing. I’m fine, I’ll go back to bed.”

A resigned sigh, then, “Just come in here.”

Carefully, Isaac opened the door. Derek had already thrown back the covers of the queen sized bed, and shifted so he was facing the wall.

Isaac crept into the free space, back facing Derek’s.

The older werewolf shifted so his shoulder bumped against the teen’s, trying to convey with a touch what concern his words lacked.

After a moment, Isaac bumped back, before snuggling into the pillows.

Derek listened as his breathing evened out, his own eyelids drooping as the scent of pack permeated the room. 

If he dreamed again that night, he didn’t remember them in the morning.  
...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> …  
> A/N:  
> Derek, you emotional train wreck, get to a stable place where I can write you having human interactions.


	5. Stiles and Derek

…

Stiles Stilinksi liked to think of himself as an adventurer waiting to happen.

As a child, he had packed his Hogwarts trunk by the time he was nine, and spent a creative few weeks when he was five with his pockets full of pebbles, just in case he needed to leave a trail to follow out of the woods if he ever got lost. To this day, the teen kept a frighteningly comprehensive first aid kit in the back of his jeep, and a pocket knife on his key chain.

His expectations of fantasy has been left behind with childhood, and Stiles determined any adventure he might come across would consist of more mundane problems, or a murder mystery thriller if he pushed hard enough.

Therefore, when the startlingly handsome Derek Hale, whom he had not been stalking, thank you very much Scott, collapsed in front of his jeep in the school parking lot, he barely had a panic attack at all.

“Sweet baby Jesus, Mary and Joseph!”

Though, really, he should have expected it, what with the week he had been having.  
…

He had been riding high since the game on Saturday, shoulder aching from all the congratulatory slaps from his teammates. Even Jackson told him he “wasn’t completely terrible”, and Stiles knew to take a win where he could.

The hype had ended by Monday though, so he was surprised when one of his teammates chose to sit next to him during lunch. Unusually, Stiles sat alone. Apparently, while he had been in the nurse’s station getting his ankle wrapped, Scott had made an impressive move during the one inning he played. When the new girl Alison, at the game with her new friend Lydia apparently, congratulated him, that somehow translated into Scott being invited to sit at the much coveted ‘popular kid’s table’.

Leaving Stiles alone in the lunchroom. Until suddenly he wasn’t.

“Isaac!” the teen squeaked, flailing when the curly haired boy sat across from him.

Isaac Lahey gave him a flat look, both eyebrows slightly raised, saying more than any comment on Stiles’s behavior ever could. Unperturbed, Stiles stuffed another curly fry into his mouth.

“How is your ankle doing?” Isaac asked, and he nearly choked.

Stiles had a very good memory. During the rough and tumble tackling of a lacrosse game, his attention quickly jumped from one moving target to another. It made him very good at running interference, as the second someone changed trajectory, his brain would drop whatever it was doing and take notice. That also meant that when his teammate barreled over a guy with at least fifty pounds of muscle on him, Stiles noticed the way his eyes flashed more vividly than his normally brown irises could excuse. 

“Fine!” Stiles said, loudly enough for a girl at another table to scowl at him. “Totally fine!”

“That’s good,” Isaac said, turning back to his food- chicken and a hamburger. Way too much meat in Stiles’s opinion, but then again he was cholesterol conscious.

Isaac seemed different from the few times Stiles had taken notice of him during practice or passing in the locker room. He wore a scarf around his neck, that was too thin to be anything but ornamental, and his shoulders were tucked back instead of hunched forwards.

So, maybe a pod person.

A hipster pod person.

He knew this day would come.

If Isaac started wearing big thick rimmed glasses along with his scarfs, Stiles might just break out the aluminum hats. Though, since he hadn’t been friends, exactly with Isaac before- well, /before/ , he didn’t know whether the eye glow thingy was related to his change in behavior. Or if his behavior had really changed at all.

Maybe Stiles was overthinking it. 

He had thought that the strange intrusion into his life of a curly haired hipster would end after that painfully awkward lunch, where Stiles had found his mouth breaking the silence by talking about the history of the color blue and its uses in textiles (wikipedia waits for no sleeper, and while binge searching for things with glowing yellow eyes, he had somehow fallen into looking at the history of dyes in tapestries). However, it seemed that he and Isaac shared many more classes than he anticipated, as, while Scott partnered himself with Alison at every opportunity, Isaac filled in the blank seat beside him with little concern or difficulty.

Stiles would have been offended on Scott’s behalf, but his friend was busy drooling over Alison sneaking him smiles between taking notes, and didn’t seem bothered. Stiles refused to be bothered that someone was replacing Scott. If Scott wasn't bothered, then he wouldn't be either. (If Scott noticed- if he cared enough to be bothered-)

At practice , Stiles was benched due to his ankle, and Scott made moon eyes at Allison from where he guarded the net. 

“She's so pretty,” Scott gabbed, as they got into Stiles’s blue jeep. “She's got this smile, like wow, and she's so funny, and-”

Stiles hummed noncommittally. 

On the other side of the parking lot, Isaac stopped beside a sleek black sport car. He leaned down to talk through the rolled down window to the driver, then clicked open the door to slide into the passenger seat. 

The mystery of the black car and glowing eyes carried him all through the night, which was supposed to be spent playing video games with Scott, but as his friend was currently on a date with ‘Alison of the perfect dimples’...

He woke up before dawn to the sound of his dad’s cruiser leaving the driveway, and his face stuck to the keyboard of his laptop, which was opened to a page on dark elves.

Rolling into the parking lot of the school, Scott blissfully painting poetic pictures of Alison bowling, he saw the deputies setting up a perimeter around a ravaged looking bus. A fission of excited terror shot up his spine. He turned to Scott ready to ask whether his friend wanted to try and sneak closer to the scene and find out what happened, but the words died in his mouth. Scott had leapt from the car the moment it had parked, dopy grin splashed across his face as he met Alison on the curb.

And that was fine.

Isaac occupied the seat next to him in homeroom, straight through lunch. He chewed on his pen during English, frowning at all the red marks on his returned essay.

“Dude, you ok?” Stiles asked, carefully ignoring the little hearts and sonnets to Alison’s eyes Scott surely was composing just behind him.

Isaac’s eyes ticked up to meet his own, teeth grit around the pen. “Yeah. She just keeps telling me to ‘support my point’, but I did that, so…”

Stiles leaned into the other’s space, eyes darting over the essay. “Oh, she’s saying that you need to support your thesis more. Here, I’ve got an essay outline- it’s always the same thing. Three points of evidence, three paragraphs, then a conclusion and intro makes a paper.”

He began to scribble in the margins of Isaac’s paper.

“Thanks,” Isaac said, once it was handed back. “You’re really good at this.”

“I write a lot of essays.” He indicated his own paper with a blocky A on the top, along with the usual comment of, ‘Please stay on topic next time’. 

Isaac smiled, a thin quirk of his lips, like a bird settling unsure on a wire. Stiles blinked, amber eyes blank for half a heartbeat, before he quickly turned back to his own paper.

The black car did not pick up Isaac from school that day or the next. When asked, Isaac said something about its window needing to get repaired. Stiles offered to give him a ride home, wondering whether by the comment he had offered himself up to the mothership, or as a very mouthy dinner. However, Isaac said he was going running in the woods that day, so maybe next time.

Which brings us back to Friday, and the unfairly attractive body currently draping itself over the hood of Stiles’s jeep.  
...

“Dude, are you ok?”

Derek Hale glowered, chest heaving while a bead of fevered sweat sliced down his brow. “I’m fine,” he growled, and tried to get up off the ground.

Stiles balked, reaching down to catch the pale form before it broke something important and head shaped against the pavement.

Derek’s nostrils flared as he took a deep breath, probably ready to chew out the teen, or, even more likely, lunge for his throat. Then he paused.

“You know Isaac.” Derek’s tone was not a question. “Where is he?”

“Uh,” Stiles floundered, his mind going on a roller coaster ride of connections, turning sharply this way and that as it tried to connect Derek McEyebrows Hale and Isaac the fluffy haired wonder. “You’re the dude with the car,” he ended up saying.

Derek’s eyes flashed electric blue. “Where is he?”

“Woah!” Instead of leaping back and letting go of the increasingly feral man, like any sane individual would, Stiles leaned forward. “Dude! Are you one of those pod vampire dark elf things too?! I mean, maybe not a hipster pod person, because you’re rocking the leather jacket and biker scruff- wait, biker pod people?- “

A bone grinding grip on his shoulder silenced Stiles with a sharp hiss. “Dude!”

But Derek paid him no mind, attention fixated on the black SUV pulling up to the curb. Stiles followed his gaze to see Alison wave goodbye to a smiling Scott, before approaching the car.

“I need to go.” Derek panted, trying to steady himself on only two feet.

“Yeah, good luck with that,” Stiles snorted, redoubling his grip on the other’s shoulder. He tugged him towards the door to the jeep. “Get in, I’ll drive you.”

Derek’s glare could have set a match alight, but with another fleeting glance at the SUV, he clicked open the car door.  
…

‘cnt give you ride home today sry!’ 

Stiles snapped his phone closed, the text to Scott sent. Glancing to his passenger, he cringed.

“Dude, that looks bad. Should I be taking you to a hospital? Magic hospital? St. Mungos?” 

They were parked on one of the access roads near the back of the school, far removed from the main road where any more SUVs with questionably legal tinting on their windows might drive past. Derek had shifted, revealing a festering wound bleeding black in his side.

“Don’t call me dude.”

Stiles would have rolled his eyes, but Derek’s panting was becoming labored. The black lines seemed to be spreading, creeping up his ribs to his heart.

“You gotta tell me something man, otherwise I can’t help you.”

Derek’s eyes were glassy, staring unseeing at the ceiling. “You can’t help me. The poison’s almost reached my heart. I’ll be dead in a few hours.”

A cold weight settled in the pit of Stiles’s stomach. He turned to face his passenger fully. “No, you do not get to die in my car! I just got the seats cleaned!”

“Sorry,” Derek chuffed, not sounding sorry at all. “You can roll my corpse into the woods, if that would make things easier.”

“No!” Stiles ran his hand over his buzzed short hair, eyes squeezed shut. “You freaked out about seeing Alison’s car, so you must not like the Argents. Her dad deals in- weapons? -guns? So maybe he was the one to shoot you. With a poisoned bullet.” The teen let out a shaky breath. “Oh man, I am in way over my head.”

Derek watched him, feverish eyes bright. “It was wolfsbane.”

“Wolfsbane? Oh my god, you’re a werewolf. Skin changer? What’s the right term here, I don’t want to be culturally insensitive or anything-“ He gripped his phone. “Right, focus Stiles. Dead man sitting in your car.”

He took another shuddering breath. “Ok, what’s the antidote for wolfsbane?”

“I-“ Derek’s voice was hoarse. “I need one of the bullets that shot me.”

“Which we could find at the Argent’s house.”

What the glare lacked in power it doubled in potency. “I would have gone there first, if it wasn’t so well guarded.”

Stiles’s phone chose that moment to chime, indicating an incoming text. Reflexively, he glanced at the screen, and froze, a wonderfully awful idea pricking its way through his thoughts.  
…

This had to be among the top three stupidest things Stiles has ever done, and that’s including the time he lit the microwave on fire trying to turn a potato into french fries when he was thirteen.

“This is a stupid idea,” Derek panted in the passenger seat beside him.

“Your face is stupid,” the teen countered, knuckles white where they clenched around the steering wheel. His other hand, much more gently, held his cell phone, where the stark text to Scott still glowed on the screen.

‘Alison’s parents met my mom at the game and now they’re making us all have dinner together tonight HELP IDK what to wear and I think mrA is going to shoot me!!!!!’ 

It seemed a little soon to be meeting the parents in Stiles’s opinion, Scott and Alison only really having gone on that one double date to the bowling alley with Lydia-the-goddess-on-earth and Jack-ass-son. But, then again, if the Argents were werewolf hunters, which would be so much cooler if one of said hunted werewolves was not dying slowly in his car, then maybe they had the right to be overprotective and paranoid. 

If the sheriff ever found out about things that went bump in the night, he would probably have a heart attack whenever his son set foot outside the house.

Stiles pulled himself away from that thought before it could take root, and refocused on the road in front of him.

Thanks to Scott’s incessant chattering, and a request to give him a ride for a ‘study date’, Stiles knew where the Argent’s house was. He also knew that his jeep was too recognizable for any kind of covert mission, so had parked it several blocks away from said house. A willow leaned its branches low over the car, providing an illusion of privacy from the street.

“Ok, now, what am I looking for again?”

Derek’s jaw clenched. “You’re not doing this.”

“Yes I am.” Stiles unclipped his seatbelt. “Besides, you don’t look able to stand, let alone break into a house.” He dug under his seat for the lock picks Deputy Sharon had shown him how to use one amusing afternoon when he was eleven. 

Derek’s breathing had become measured hisses through his teeth, in a technique Stiles knew was to stave off hyperventilating. 

“A bullet. It would be- In her things. Maybe a guest room. Maybe the armory. I don’t- “ He clenched his teeth together. “It should be filled with a black powder- that’s the wolfsbane.”

“Bullet. Right.” Stiles tucked the picks into his pocket. “Not like that won’t be a needle in a haystack-”

“Listen!” Derek’s eyes were squeezed shut. 

Stiles’s voice cut out mid word, mouth still hanging open.

“If you don’t get back in time.” Derek panted, muscles straining where they were stained black. “You have to tell Isaac what happened; that Kate Argent is back.”

“Who?”

Derek shook him by the scruff of his shirt, jarring Stiles’s head. “Promise me!”

“Alright, I promise!” The teen shoved himself away, and straightened his flannel. “But you’re not going to die! If you die, I’ll- I’ll resurrect you and kill you again!” A giddy look crossed his face. “Wait is that something that can actually happen?”

“Go Stiles!” Derek hissed.

“Right, right!” His face sobered, as he glanced into the passenger seat. “I’ll be back. You’re going to be ok.”

Derek nodded, jaw clenched. Stiles appreciated the gesture, though he knew the werewolf didn’t believe him.  
...

“They have got to work on their security,” Stiles said as he jimmied the screen out of the kitchen window. “Didn’t even need the lock picks, they left the window latch wide open! But I guess if you’re used to hunting things that go bump in the night, you aren’t afraid of no ghosts still in their shell.”

He placed the screen inside on the kitchen counter, before climbing in after it. “Are ghosts even real? Note to self: ask the werewolf.” The screen clicked back into place, and Stiles carefully closed the window. 

Pausing, he held his breath, ears peaked, but heard nothing. “Scott, I promise to never complain about your girlfriend taking up your time again.” 

He stepped on the outsides of the stairs, careful to walk on the balls of his feet to avoid creeking. “Better start from the top.”

He skipped over the first room- too much pink to be anything but a teenage girl’s- and only gave a cursory glance over the counter tops in the master bedroom. In the guest room, however, he struck gold. Metaphorically.

“How does one person fit so many guns in one bag? I mean, this thing’s just a duffle, wouldn’t they dig into her back when she carried them?”

The guns did not respond, though the box of bullets he pulled from the side pocket of the bag did jingle. 

“Monkshood, same as wolfsbane. Thank you Professor Snape.”

Stiles snapped a picture of the label and the bullets with his cell phone, before snagging two and stuffing them into his pocket. He placed the disrupted items back into place as well as he could, and crept back down the stairs.

His heart beat furiously as he stepped to the kitchen.

The front door clicked.

Shit.

Stiles undid the chain holding the back door closed, covering each metal link with his hand to muffle the sound. 

The front door opened, and a woman’s voice called out, “Hello! I’m back early! Allie? Chris?”

The dead bolt proved more of a challenge, and Stiles held his breath as he inched it open.

“Must still be out.” A pair of high heels clicked their way over the tiled entry floor.

Stiles ducked down behind the kitchen table, hand pressed over his mouth so hard his fingers turned white. He imagined a blank space in the universe where he was. A Stiles’s shaped hole that didn’t breathe, didn’t move, didn’t even have a heart beat. His temples ached.

A flash of blond hair swept into view, and the woman opened the fridge. She hummed, consideringly, then pulled out a bottle. Untwisting the top, she tossed the refuse in the trash, and sashayed out of the kitchen.

Stiles heard the TV spark on. Creeping to the door, he carefully twisted open the knob. The hinges creaked, and he squeezed his eyes shut in prayer to whatever might be listening.

All this sneaking around was giving him a headache.

He pulled the door open another inch, and, miraculously, it remained silent. 

Stiles slid out the door, head light, and didn't let out the breath he didn't realize he had been holding until the door clicked shut behind him. 

Panting on the doorstep, adrenaline pumping through his veins, the teen shuffle crawled on his knees till he reached far enough from the house to throw off suspicion, and stood. 

He didn't let himself break into a flat run until after he turned the corner, and the Argent house was out of sight.   
…

The body in his passenger seat was not moving.

“Shit shit shit shit- Please don’t be dead!” Stiles unlocked the door, barely managing to catch Derek as he slumped out of the vehicle. Overhead the willow swayed in a breeze, its low branches obscuring their activities from the road. “Dude, you didn’t even have your seatbelt on!” Stiles grunted as he pulled the werewolf the rest of the way out of the vehicle, and onto the ground. “Though I guess that doesn’t matter when the car’s not moving, but still!”

Derek didn’t speak. His white skin felt unnaturally cold under Stiles’s fingers. A sluggish pulse beat in the werewolf’s neck, and Stiles let out a quiet breath of relief.

“Come on man, I got the bullet. You gotta wake up!” He shook Derek’s shoulder, only managing to make his head loll from side to side on the grass.

Stiles tittered, mind skittering from one end of the spectrum to the other, before settling in the middle of a thought which seemed the lesser of multiple evils. 

“Please don’t kill me for this,” he said. Rearing back, Stiles prayed this would wake the werewolf up and not hurt him any further, and slapped his hand with a resounding crack across Derek’s perfectly sculpted cheek.

Stiles slumped to the side, clutching his fingers, which definitely felt broken.

On the ground, Derek groaned, eyes opening a feverish crack.

Flinging his own pain to the bottom of his list of priorities, Stiles dug the bullet out of his pocket. “Here, bullet, what now?”

Derek’s eyes opened wider, the hazy look receding slightly. “Lighter, in my pocket,” he gasped, unearthing some great well of strength within himself to roll onto his side. He took the bullet, and bit off the end, dumping a pile of black flakey powder onto a space of dry packed earth amid the grass. 

Stiles returned a moment later with the lighter, fished from the black leather jacket still in the passenger seat of his jeep, and watched in fascination as the werewolf flicked it open, and touched the flame to the powder. It went up in a flash of purple, releasing a heady perfume of smoke that made Stiles’s head spin for a moment.

Derek scooped up the burnt ashes, as well as whatever dirt was mixed into them, pulled up his shirt, and ground them into the festering wound.

“That can’t be sanitary,” Stiles said.

The werewolf ignored him, teeth grit, as more black began to ooze from his side. Soon the black was replaced by a clean red and pussy yellow, before healing over completely, as if the wound had never been. 

Derek coughed, vomiting up a mouth full of black tar, before slumping to his side, exhausted. Color began to return to his lips, and his breathing became easier. 

“That. Was. AWESOME!” Stiles crowed, throwing his fists into the air.

The werewolf cracked open a single glaring eye. “Do you ever shut up?”

“It’s a feature, not a flaw.” Stiles grinned cheekily.

Derek sighed long-sufferingly. “Right, I’m leaving.” He made to get up.

“Ah, no, no, no.” Stiles put his hand on the werewolf’s shoulder. Derek, completely uninhibited by the scrawny human paused anyway, and quirked an eyebrow. 

“You’re not getting rid of me that easily!” Stiles continued. “I just saved your life, doesn’t that mean there’s, like a special bond or something between us? Do I get a wish? Do I get /three/ wishes?” The teen shook his head. “Wait, what I meant was, if you go running off into the woods without me, I’m the son of the Sheriff with questionably flexible morals, and I will hunt you down. So it’s definitely easier for the both of us if you just tell me what’s going on.”

Derek blinked, gaze traveling from Stiles’s hand to his face and back again, as if questioning how exactly the teen proposed to stop him. Finally, he sighed again, relenting.

“I’ll drive!” Stiles beamed, already walking round to open up the door to his jeep.

At a more sedate pace, still favoring his recently healed side, Derek slid through the passenger door and slumped back against the headrest.

“So, wolfsbane.” Stiles said conversationally, pulling away from the empty house and the secluded cave of willow tree branches. “Wouldn’t it make sense to just stockpile the stuff, so we don’t have to go through this song and dance every time a hunter gets trigger happy? You know, keep a bit in your wallet when you know it’s werewolf hunting season?”

Derek’s eyes were closed, dark bags standing out against his still pale face. “Wolfsbane burns us and breathing it in, even just the scent, for too long can make us sick.”

“I guess every Superman has his kryptonite.” Stiles said sagely. “Lucky for you you have your very own Batman to save the day!”

“Shut up Stiles.”  
…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> …  
> A/N:  
> Derek was shot in the side instead of the arm this time, so the poison spread faster.
> 
> I will get my sterek endgame, or so help me!


	6. Peter

…

Peter is twenty nine years old. His body is thirty five. 

His sister turned thirty for the eighth year in a row four months ago. She’s been dead for six years. 

He was going to take his wife and son to the beach, little Ish just old enough to be trusted to mind himself building castles while his parents contemplated giving him a sibling. That stretch of shore was turned into a hotel two years ago. 

He was going to teach his gangly colt of a nephew to drive stick, the kid barely sixteen with a fresh permit. A twenty two year old stranger stood in front of him, wearing the face of his sister’s husband. 

“I can’t leave you alone for five minutes, can I.” Peter sat in the recliner in the living room of Isaac’s house, fingers steepled in front of him.

Derek shifted from foot to foot, back straight, face still too pale. “I was scouting.”

“And while I applaud your initiative, it ended with you almost dead. While I don’t care what you get up to in your spare time, I would prefer if it didn’t interrupt my plans.

The beta looked down. On the stairs, Isaac peered around the railing.

“Are you hurt?” Isaac’s voice was so small. Derek’s shoulders hunched even further. Peter made a note that Derek was susceptible to guilt incurred by a pup’s concern. Maybe it would stop him being so bullheaded in the future.

“I’m fine,” Derek grunted.

The alpha could still feel Isaac’s fraternal terror through the bond, but put that aside to address later. The boy’s emotional investment in their little pack was useful in ensuring his loyalty, but tiresome to manage. 

If he had had them both from the beginning, if Talia had let him take Derek under his wing earlier, the older beta would know what to do with the instinctual concern for his pack mates. But that was not to be. He had only taught Derek for a year in how to train the younger pups in the basics of fighting-

He pulled his thoughts to a halt. That was six years ago. If his nephew remembered any of what Peter had taught him, it was rusty with disuse. Later. Later Peter would take up his lessons again, teach him to be the right hand of the alpha- of him this time, not Laura. He closed his eyes. Later.

“So Kate Argent shot you,” Peter said, summarizing Derek’s report. “And when you couldn’t find me, you tried to find Isaac.”

Isaac pressed his lips tight over the apologies Peter had requested he stop spouting.

Derek nodded. “The Sheriff’s son found me. He knows.”

Now that was interesting. “Did you tell him?”

“He figured it out.”

On the stairs, Isaac perked up. “Stiles knows?” 

Peter turned his gaze to the younger wolf. “You know this boy?”

“We hang out at school.” Isaac ducked his head, still unable to meet his alpha’s eye. Peter repressed a sigh. Later. “We’re on the lacrosse team together.”

Peter turned back to Derek. “And Stiles broke into the Argent’s house to steal you a bullet?”

Derek nodded, jaw tight.

The alpha’s attention swung back to Isaac. “Why don’t you bring your new friend around to meet the pack?”

Isaac frowned. Through their pack bond, Peter could taste the barest hints of trepidation and old ingrained fears. Peter’s fingers flexed, a brief thought of how he should have drawn the death of the boy’s father out longer.

“A pack needs three members and an alpha to be stable. I’m not replacing you, I’m shopping around to get you another brother.”

“I- I don’t have his number.” 

The beta’s shame tasted bitter on the back of his tongue. 

“That’s all right, you can ask him when you see him at school.” Peter soothed, the same tone he had used when Cora came to him shame faced, after having tracked mud into his library. “I have plans that are best not interrupted for tomorrow, and Sunday I think it’s best if the pack lays low.”

Derek tensed where he stood, clearly able to imagine what kind of plans his alpha had in mind. 

“Do you need any help?” Isaac asked, ernest naivety dripping from each word. 

Peter had to repress a smile at Derek’s aborted movement to look at the other beta. As if Peter would take a pup to a hunt like this untrained.

“Thank you Isaac.” The boy’s pleasure bubbled through his pores. “But not this time. The full moon is next week, however, and I think it would be a good bonding experience for the pack to do something together then. What do you think Derek?”

Derek’s back looked painfully taut. Peter repressed the urge to grin at his discomfort.

“We’ll decide later then. Is there anything else?”

“Um,” Isaac’s voice was barely a hiccup of a whisper.

Peter smiled as kindly as his burnt face would allow. “Yes?”

“Monday is parent teacher night?” The teen caught himself. “I mean, I know you can’t come, or anything.” Can’t, not don’t want you to. “But the school’s going to call if they don’t hear from my dad, so…”

“I’ll write you a note.”

Isaac ducked his head, pleasure radiating from his barely there smile. Peter repressed another sigh. It cracked in the back of his jaw like a yawn, and he felt the weight of the day behind his eyes. He could almost last through the day without becoming confused about when he was, but the two betas contributed to his headaches more often than their presence in the pack alleviated them.

Isaac sat up straighter from his perch on the staircase, and a spark of warmth flooded the alpha’s muscles. Derek’s glower deepened, but he remained unmoved. Ah well, when Peter called, the pack would pool their strength whether he wanted to or not. 

He could sense something stirring beneath his nephew’s displeasure, like a nagging gnat buzzing in his ear trying to tell him something. Peter smiled at Isaac. “So, now that that’s all settled, how about you start on your homework? It is a school night.”

The pup nodded, and scampered up the staircase to his room. Peter listened long enough to hear the door click closed, before standing. His joints on his right side creaked, and he winced. Healing old burnt muscles was not comfortable in the least. He nodded towards the back door, and was pleased when Derek fell into step behind him. He led his nephew out just past the treeline, before turning around.

“It seems as though you have something more to tell me about your misadventure.”

Derek looked down. “No.”

His heart remained steady, though a spike of anxious adrenaline permeated his scent. Not exactly a lie then.

“Does this have something to do with how you knew it was Kate Argent who shot you out of that group of hunters? You must have known her before, if you could recognize her at a glance with a bullet in your side.”

Derek’s shoulders hunched inwards, as if trying to draw himself into a line so thin where he stood, that he would simply vanish. 

“I caught one of her associates, you know.” Peter continued, voice light. “He, along with his intestines, spilled that the woman who hired them for her little side project told them that she had inside information, and that was how she knew where to set the fires to trap us in the house.”

Derek’s lips pressed so tightly together, Peter could smell blood where his teeth dug in. Shame and guilt permeated the air around him, and he curled his arms around his chest, as if blocking his body from view. 

Peter’s mouth went dry. He had seen similar body language on girls from the various support groups which met in the meeting rooms of the library. He had sat in on a few of them, even, when Laura grew old enough to have to worry about men getting the wrong ideas about her. But- Derek- he had never, Peter never imagined he would need to worry about such a thing happening to his nephew.

Derek, you’re- you were fifteen. You were still just a pup. It was my job- my job to watch out for you. Why didn’t you listen when I taught you how to identify a hunter? Why didn’t I teach you about all the ways you could be hurt? Why didn’t you tell us? Peter bit back the words before they could escape his fangs.

The alpha took a centering breath. “Would it help if I let you be the one to kill her?”

Derek’s eyes snapped up to focus on his uncle’s, glowing a deathly blue. He opened his mouth, bloody fangs extending as he growled.

Peter sent a wave of approval through their pack bond, snirking when he felt the other wolf pull their connection tightly around the burning pit of anger at his core. Standing, the alpha put his hands on Derek’s tight shoulders, red eyes staring into his. 

“She will pay for what she did to our pack, and to you.”

Derek’s eyes glowed brighter in response.  
...

Later, after a nap, Peter contemplated his reflection.

The betas careened through the edges of his awareness, Derek having taken Isaac onto the preserve to teach him better control of his shift before the sun set and the hunters began to prowl. Isaac’s emotions rocked back and forth from trepidation to an overwhelming sense of accomplishment, while Derek’s remained at a steady level of exasperation. 

Peter prodded at the stiff dead scar tissue of his cheek. Werewolves did not scar, their healing usually closing any wound before such a thing could occur. Only prolonged exposure to certain things, electrical and chemical burns being a few, could leave any lasting damage. A scar, once formed though, couldn’t heal. There was nothing to heal, it was all dead tissue.

He pressed a nail to his twisted cheek, scratching a line down his face, peeling away the decayed skin. It began to bleed, but after a moment, closed, revealing a line of pink new skin to replace that which he had clawed away.

Peter let out the breath he had been holding, and turned away from the glass.

Later.

Leaving his sweater and shirt on the bed, the alpha left by the back door. The sun had only just begun to set, casting a sheen of pink across the treetops. Next door, the nosy neighbor wrestled with an appliance in her kitchen, thoroughly uninterested in the goings on outside her window. A rabbit darted into the underbrush of the woods, startled when Peter walked into the trees. 

He took off his pants, and folded them neatly at the base of a tree. Cracking his neck, the werewolf stretched to his feet, feeling his spine lengthen. His mouth felt too full of teeth, but only for the time it took for his jaw to elongate into a muzzle. Fur sprouted over his chest and arms, and Peter let his bulky shoulders slope to the ground so that he was balanced on all fours.

He shook himself, feeling his muscles ripple and settle, and scratched a spot behind his ear which itched.

Setting his nose to the wind, Peter loped off towards the center of town.

When the Hales first settled the area surrounding Beacon Hills, it was not apart of the United States. They fled west from their ancestral pack lands in New Amsterdam, where all predators were being hunted out by paranoid farmers. A pack of coyotes had lived here, and there was a war over territory. It was not until some unspecified threat hunting them both forced the two packs to unite, a pact sealed by the union of the eldest daughter of the coyote pack and the Hale alpha. The wolf genes bred truer in the family, and the last born coyote had been Peter’s great aunt. Some family legends told of other strange marriages to jaguars in South America, but Peter’s research to trace the family tree back that far had burnt to ashes.

Still, as he stalked through the woods, Peter wondered what strange amalgamation gave his body the form it had now. Talia had been a pure wolf, albeit one the size of a small horse. Their mother had never quite gotten the back legs right, leaving her a hulking beast of destruction with clawed hands the size of dinner plates without much fur.

His musings cut short as he reached the edge of the woods. Even so close to the city center, trees permeated the town, like the forest was only temporarily allowing the inhabitants to live in the clearing, before swallowing it back beneath the shadows.

Peter cast about for his betas, sensing them both in the direction he had come, back safe in their den. Good.

He slunk beneath the canopy, until the video store came into sight. A car pulled up, expelling a tall boy and a girl with red hair arguing over which film to see. They looked about Isaac’s age.

As if summoned by his thoughts, the beta sent a questioning warble of concern through their pack bond. Almost immediately, Derek’s sharp bark of a reprimand cut the younger wolf off. Good, at least his nephew was taking his position as second in command seriously. Isaac was very young, not just as a werewolf, and didn’t realize the danger of distracting his alpha when his alpha was on a hunt. If the betas were here beside him, the attention needed to whip them into a frenzy and direct them to a kill would be minimal. But- Later. 

His pack was strong, but the hunters couldn’t know that yet.

There would be time for that later.

Peter refocused on the video store. The couple had returned to their car, the boy moaning something about the notebook.

The alpha waited until the car drove out of the parking lot, headlights reflecting against his irises, before he bunched up his muscles to charge through the glass door.

Everything could be dealt with later.

Now it was time to hunt.  
…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N:  
> Sorry for the late post, I was eclipse chasing.  
> Peter is harder to write than I expected.


	7. Stiles

…

Stiles texted Scott six times Monday morning, with an increasing number of exclamation points, questioning: where he was, did he need Stiles to drive to pick him up somewhere in his jeep, was he aware that first period was starting and that he was really going to be late, dude where are you?

It was only when he heard an offhand comment from Lydia, that Allison was playing hookie for her birthday, that the pieces fell into place, and Stiles put his phone away.

He took a deep breath, held it for the count of three, then let it out again. The therapist he saw as a kid always had him do that to calm his heart rate and emotions to try and stave off panic attacks. It worked, most of the time.

The teen got out his notebook and began to take notes, nearly punching his pen through the paper. He texted Scott between classes, letting him know that Stiles was taking notes for him, so if he wanted them he should give Stiles a call.

He sat next to Danny in Chemistry, Lydia having taken up the seat beside Jackson now that her usual partner Allison was otherwise gone. The other boy shot him a mildly bemused look, but didn’t comment, beyond asking whether he wanted to borrow a pen, as his pencil seemed to be about to break in half.

After class, with still no response from Scott, Stiles marched to where he had parked his jeep in the parking lot.

“Hey, wait up!”

Stiles turned on instinct to see Isaac jogging up to meet him.

“I didn’t see you much in class today,” Isaac said, eyes wide with hurt.

Stiles tried to think of how to politely explain that his belated freakout after nearly witnessing the death of Derek Hale by way of werewolf poison had made him rethink several of his life choices in the context of who he associated with, and that he had still not quite reached a decision by the time school rolled around on Monday, and while he wasn’t exactly avoiding Isaac, he definitely made a small effort to not be where the werewolf might expect him to be.

“Sorry about that,” Stiles said instead, jingling his keys in his palm.

The other teen cocked his head. “What are you doing? We have lacrosse practice today.”

“I left my gym bag in the car.” Stiles jerked his head towards the vehicle. “Need to wash those knee pads before they grow a new form of life.”

Isaac chuckled.

Opening the back door of the jeep, Stiles exchanged his school bag for his gym bag, and slung it over his shoulder. He shut the door, made sure it was locked, and tucked the keys into a side pocket of the bag. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw Isaac still standing behind him.

“So.” Stiles tapped his hands against his thighs, fingers looped loosely into the straps of his bag. “You’re a werewolf.”

“Yup.” Isaac leaned back, hands tucked into his sweater pockets.

“Huh. You just said it. Just like that.”

The werewolf blinked guilelessly. “Should I have said it another way?”

“Well, I mean.” Stiles floundered. “Shouldn’t you keep it, like, a secret or something?”

“But you already knew.” Stiles opened his mouth, but Isaac kept speaking in anticipation of his question. “Derek told us.”

“Oh. That’s, uh, cool. Is he doing all right? He just made me drop him off at the edge of the woods when he was ok to walk, and growled at me until I drove away.”

“He can be a bit hard to get to know.”

“Understatement.” 

“So,” Isaac said, head tilted to the side. “The rest of my pack wants to meet you.”

The gym bag fell to the pavement as Stiles’s grip on it failed. “What?”

“The rest of the pack wants to meet you,” Isaac repeated. “There’s not that many of us, and you already met Derek, but it only seems fair that you meet everyone. You don’t have to let me know right now, but the invitation there.”

“Uh.” Stiles’s breath caught in his chest. “Can I, like, tell anyone about this? Just my best friend Scott, he won’t believe, uh-“

“That you got invited to meet a pack of werewolves?”

“Yeah that, and, no offense, but I want them to know where to look for my body if I go missing.”

Isaac laughed. Stiles didn’t.

“Can you trust him?”

Stiles hesitated, then said, “Of course!”

“Then I’ll ask alpha.”

“Alpha-? Werewolf, right. Head of the pack. So, do you guys follow that kind of structure? Like, alpha, omega, delta?”

“Derek said that we were betas.” Isaac turned towards the locker rooms, waiting till Stiles fell into step beside him. “And omegas are wolves with no pack, so we have to watch out for them, because they’re dangerous.”

“Oh, right. Neat!”

Together they walked into the locker room.

“Hey, can I have your cell number?” Isaac said, just as the door closed behind them.  
…

The text came that night.

‘Alpha says it’s ok, but you can only tell Scott.’

Stiles waited all of the time it took to scroll through his recent contacts to tell his best friend.

“Scott, dude, bro, I really, really need you to call me back ASAP.”

He didn’t think this was the kind of message to have via answering machine or text, and waited by his phone well into the morning, scrolling through page after page of google searches on werewolves.

The alarm rang at seven, startling Stiles awake. His browser was open to a documentary on timber wolf calls, and his keyboard was covered in drool from where he had leaned against it.

Rubbing a hand over his face, the teen threw on yesterday’s clothes, and miraculously managed not to crash his jeep into a light pole while driving to school.

He stopped on the way for a cup of coffee, which made him late to first period. Scott was chatting with Allison, so Stiles couldn’t catch his eye. 

Isaac had saved him a chair behind him in the back row, and Stiles shot him a smile as he sat. 

“You ok? You smell tired,” the werewolf asked, when the teacher’s back was turned.

Stiles prodded him in the shoulder blade with a highlighter. “What does that even mean dude? I’m fine, just got lost on the interwebs.”

Scott was seated closer to the door, and when the bell rang, Stiles was too caught up in the throng to catch him before he was already out the door, arm linked with his girlfriend’s. 

“Here, I’ll help you carry these,” Isaac said. With one hand, he picked up Stiles’s bag, which was overflowing with all the hard backed textbooks he didn’t have time to put into his locker during his mad dash to class.

“Gosh, I feel like the pretty new girl at school,” Stiles said, mouth set in a flat line as he looked at his friend’s retreating back.

“Yes you are,” Isaac said, patting his shoulder.

Stiles snorted and rolled his eyes.

He tried to catch Scott again after his next class, but, again, his friend seemed obliviously occupied with staring into Allison’s eyes. At lunch, Scott vanished, and Stiles overheard Jackson and Lydia wondering whether Allison would bring them back milkshakes when she returned from getting a burger for lunch, instead of eating cafeteria food.

He didn’t even bother looking for Scott at lacrosse practice, and at least in that he wasn’t disappointed. 

He was sitting in his desk chair in his room absently hitting redial with one hand, while his other scrolled through a wikipedia page on his laptop, when Scott finally picked up.

“Sorry man!” He could practically hear how Scott’s grin took up most of the absent space of his face. “Allison was showing me her bow- she won, like, a bunch of competitions and stuff with it when she’s a kid! She said she went hunting with her dad a few times when they lived in Texas, and she’s the best shot! Like, she hits the bullseye every time, and caught a deer and everything!”

Stiles felt his fingers go slack around his phone, and it nearly slipped. -bow, hunters, Argent- He tightened his grasp and pressed it more firmly against his ear.

“That sounds really cool Scott, but I kinda need to talk to you.”

The other boy’s tone turned plaintiffly ponderous. “Is it about that chem assignment? I got the notes from Allison, and she said she would help me through the homework, so you don’t have to worry about doing that anymore. She’s so smart!”

“Um, no, it’s not about-“

“She had, like, a 4.0 at her old school, and that was after coming into it in the middle of the year! She totally was asked to join one of those school competition teams, but she had to move before she could-“

“Scott! Can we please focus for half a second? I really need to talk-“

“Dude, what’s your problem?” Oh no, Stiles could picture the set of the crooked jaw as it frowned, but the words shot past his lips before he could temper them.

“My problem is that I’m trying to talk to my best friend about something really important, and all I’m hearing about is ‘Allison, Allison, Allison’! There are more things going on than the color of your girlfriend’s eyes!”

There was a hurt pause, then, “This is about Lydia, isn’t it!”

“What? Where did that come from?”

But Scott was already on a roll. “Dude, just because she’s Allison’s friend, and I sit with them at her table doesn’t mean I’m going to help you hook up with Lydia!”

“Dude, this has nothing to do with-!”

The dial tone beeped once, then went silent as the call disconnected.

Stiles looked at his phone, mouth agape. The home screen stared back, before switching to the black sleep screen.  
…

“Where are you going?”

It was Wednesday. Scott hadn’t spared Stiles a glance all through class and lacrosse practice, and Stiles made no effort to speak to him either. A cold weight had settled in the back of his gut, yawning like an abyss trying to swallow him up.

Stiles nearly jumped out of his skin, whirling around to face the smiling werewolf at his back. “Jesus Isaac, wear a bell.”

Isaac smiled, no flicker of repentance in his face, hands tucked in his sweater pockets. “Sorry about that. So, where are you going?”

“Oh, uh. I was just gonna grab some food.”

“Oh cool. I’ll come with you,” Isaac said, walking around to lean against the passenger side of his jeep.

“Dude, it’s fine. It’s just something, uh,” he swallowed past the lump in his throat, “Scott and I’ve done since we were, like, eight, so I never have plans Wednesday nights during my dad’s shift, other than playing halo and stuffing my face with junk food.” 

“What are you getting?”

Stiles jingled his keys in his palm. “Pizza? Since, you know, I can’t ever have stuff like that around the house when my dad’s around, because I know he’ll try to sneak a slice, and he shouldn’t be eating junk food like that, and, um…”

The werewolf’s smile remained politely on his face. “Dude, I love pizza.”

It was two pizza boxes and five levels later that Stiles looked at the werewolf key smashing his controller beside him and realized the cold weight was gone.

“Hey,” he said, when they both descended to the kitchen for a soda from the stash behind the cereal. “When did your pack want to meet me again?”

Isaac beamed.  
…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> …  
> A/N:  
> Stiles is much easier to write than Peter.  
> God, I’m just giving everyone abandonment issues in this fic, aren’t I.
> 
> Wed feb 2


	8. Meet the Pack

...  
Derek glowered when he opened the front door Friday afternoon, causing the teenager outside to freeze, heart rabbiting in his chest. He opened his mouth, ready to demand what, exactly he was doing there, when footsteps signaled another wolf descending the stairs.

“Stiles!” If Isaac had a tail, it would be wagging. Derek mentally kicked himself for that image, and turned his glare on his pack mate.

Unperturbed, the teen ducked around him, one hand already dragging his friend through the door. 

“Alpha’s not awake yet,” Isaac said. “So I was thinking we could cook dinner and have it ready before he is.”

Derek shut the door, mouth thinning to a flat line of resignation. 

An amused wobble crossed the other boy’s face. “So what do werewolves eat anyway? Freshly skinned bunny rabbit?”

Derek snorted. He’d never skinned any of the rabbits he had eaten, though that had always been during the full moon.

“Pasta primavera,” Isaac said proudly. “Alpha taught me how to make it!”

The two boys scuttled into the kitchen, topic bouncing from what few dishes Stiles made his father eat for his health, to what new video game they wanted to play. 

Derek settled on the couch, tv clicked on to a basketball game, with the volume low enough to hear the pans rattling on the burners. In the master bedroom, Peter’s breathing kept a steady pace. The alpha still needed a substantial amount of rest, though it was significantly less than when Derek first joined the pack. He zoned out, half an eye on the game, while his ears alternated between listening to the different floors of the house. He nearly jumped through the wall during the second quarter, when Isaac abruptly stopped chopping with a hiss, the copper scent of blood cutting the air. 

Above, Peter’s breath hitched, as he jolted into wakefulness. 

“No, it's fine, I got it!” The younger werewolf said, when a clattering of spoons betrayed Stiles’s flail at the sight of the injury. 

There was a pause in which the human’s heartbeat doubled its rhythm, then- “Dude! You can Wolverine heal!”

Isaac laughed, turning on the tap to rinse his hands. “Cool, right?”

The alpha’s steps traced the bedroom floor, before approaching the hall to the stairs. 

“Uh, yeah!” Derek could practically hear the teen’s wild gesticulations. “Dude! We could totally start the X-men! Or justice league, because I'm a D.C. man all the way.”

“I have always liked green lantern.”

“I have the newest elseworld run. Maybe on Monday we could binge read at my place after the big game?”

“Monday’s the full moon,” Isaac said apologetically.

“Oh.” Stiles deflated. “That’s, uh, ok. I mean, I could bring them here or something too?”

“You want to go running with us on the full moon?” Peter leaned over the banister, glancing around the corner to the kitchen. His mirth was palpable. Derek followed his gaze. 

Stiles started, clutching a spoon covered in red sauce to his chest, muttering under his breath about investing in bells. Derek wondered whether the boy knew every wolf in the room could hear him, and whether he cared.

“Right, werewolves,” the human muttered. “Probably not the best idea, huh.”

Peter strode into the kitchen, the lights throwing his scarred face into stark relief. Stiles drew in a sharp breath, and Isaac rushed to his alpha’s side.

“We’re almost done cooking,” the younger wolf said, leaning into the other’s space. “I can set the table, if you want to sit down?”

Peter’s gaze turned to him, cool smile in place, making half of his face look pleasantly attentive. “Thank you Isaac. However, I can get the plates out, while I think you two should go back to the sauce.”

The smell of burning tomatoes reached Derek’s nose, and Stiles flailed, vanishing from sight to presumably stab at the saucepan with his wooden spoon. Isaac followed his friend at a more leisurely pace, and Peter began pulling out the placemats to set on the table.

“Is it ok?” Stiles asked from the kitchen.

“It smells ok,” Isaac replied.

Derek turned back to the TV. The home team shot another basket, and the stands erupted into cheers.  
…

Dinner was delicious, and Derek scowled through every bite.

Peter only cooked occasionally when he was a child, that chore usually being left to Derek’s father. He had primarily looked after the house, and the babies along with Peter’s wife, when she was not at work. Derek remembered his father’s garden, where every summer a jungle of tomatoes which had escaped their cages would be chopped and stewed into weeks of salsas and sauces, before being preserved in vinegar to last throughout the year. There were only ashes and weeds in the back of the Hale House now.

A clatter of cutlery banging against a ceramic plate broke Derek from his reverie.

“Are you going to bite me?” Stiles blurted. His face was pale, eyes fixed on the alpha wolf as his heart valiantly tried to beat its way through his chest.

Peter looked at him. Measuredly, he chewed, swallowed, and put his knife and fork down on the side of his plate, so as to not get sauce on the placemat. 

He steepled his hands. “Do you want the bite?”

Isaac was frozen, cheeks bulging with noodles as his eyes darted between his friend and his alpha. Derek could scent his growing agitation, and tried to catch the other beta’s eye to… actually Derek didn’t think he could manage a reassuring expression at the best of times, let alone in this instance.

Stiles worried his lip. “No. I- no. Or at least, um, do I have to give you an answer right now?”

Isaac’s shoulders relaxed, but his eyes continued to watch.

The alpha chuckled. “That’s fine.”

Derek’s glare intensified, but he directed it down at his plate. He didn’t have a say in whether an alpha bit another werewolf into existence, even as head beta. However, it was considered bad manners to spring a new member onto a pack. Laura and he had spoken of it a few times- Derek cut that thought in the bud before it could unfurl.

Stiles’s eyes darted to Isaac, before looked down and prodded at his plate with a fork. “Does this mean I have to unsubscribe from the secret wolf club newsletter?”

Noticing his glance, Peter smiled, in what he must have meant as a kind expression. “Not every member of a pack has to be a werewolf you know.”

“What, really?” Stiles was oblivious to the tension stretching between the wolves.

Derek’s eyes snapped to his uncle, narrowing.

Peter ignored it, attention focused on the human in front of him. “Yes. There are other human family members. Close friends- I've heard of one pack mainly composed of selkies, after the alpha was adopted by a pod while lost at sea. Then there’s the emissary, of course.”

“What’s that?” Isaac chimed in this time, having swallowed his pasta.

The alpha rolled his fork through some noodles, stringing the two teens along. “They are human members of the pack entrusted with all the things a werewolf can’t do. You saw one of our greatest weaknesses is wolfsbane when you saved Derek. We can’t handle it, and other things like rowan wood, or mountain ash. Without someone with the knowledge and skill to do what is needed for the pack, we would have been hunted off ages ago.”

Stiles gulped. “Hunted. Like, werewolf hunters?”

Peter’s cool blue eyes met gold, and Derek nearly flinched back at the ocean of rage storming through the pack bond. “Yes. They’re known to hunt other things, though many clans specialize.”

“So it’s like a family thing? Like how, uh, werewolfing is a family thing?”

“It can be.”

Stiles put down his cutlery. “I looked up Kate Argent, after Derek told me the name after- anyway.” Stiles fiddled with the strings of his hoodie. “So, um, is all of her family full of werewolf hunters?”

Derek’s knife and fork clattered on his plate where he dropped them, appetite gone, and he stalked out the back door into the trees. He didn’t even stop to grab his jacket, but it wouldn’t do anything to thwart the chill creeping its way down his spine anyway.

The tomatoes in his stomach roiled, and he fought to keep them down. He needed- he wanted- home. He needed to go home. But there wasn’t one. He didn’t have a home. Pressing himself against a tree, Derek tried to breathe. 

The house was just visible through the trees at his back. Through the pack bond, he felt the alpha’s insistence that he remain close.  
...

Stiles watched Derek’s retreating back, mouth agape. He hadn’t meant for his question to spark such a scene, though he supposed if he had been shot and nearly killed by someone, he might react badly to hearing their name too. He had only asked, because- because-

Because there was a Katherine linked to Alison’s Facebook as her aunt, that Stiles could only really see because he was a friend of Scott, and Argent wasn’t exactly the most common last name, and- and if Scott insisted on dating into a family of racist gun wielding maniacs, Stiles didn’t think anything he said could stop him, because whenever he got started on ‘perfect Allison’s dimples’, he tended to block out everything else, including Stiles’s calls, and- and- 

Stiles ran a hand over his buzzed head. 

If it came down to it, Stiles knew, he /knew/ that Scott would pick his side, he just knew it. They had been friends since forever, and bros before girlfriends you’ve only known for a few months, right? They had fights before (never this bad) and they forgave each other afterwards every time (usually after no more than a day, not this long, never this long). Scott would pick his side, for sure. Stiles just didn’t want to test it, is all.

Isaac had hunched how in his seat, as if expecting the table to be overturned, eyes darting from the door, to his alpha, to his plate, and back again.

Peter himself did not seem perturbed by his nephew leaving, his eyes having only closed for a slow blink, face a blank mask.

“Yes,” he said in response to Stiles’s question. “If someone has the last name of ‘Argent’, they are most likely a hunter of werewolves. They train at a young age in weaponry and fighting, so are quite indoctrinated in the art of murder.” His lips twisted up in a private joke. “Or at least, of dishing murder out, instead of receiving it.”

That- that was odd. Funny, but would it be bad taste to laugh? The guy’s family was killed, and Derek was nearly killed by the Argents, and- Were those two things connected? Did the Argents werewolf hunt the Hale family and start the fire, and- Hey, murder, like those animal attacks, that would be poor taste definitely, and- that pasta looked way too red like blood, and- Hey, did it count as murder if an animal did it? Did it count if a werewolf did it? Wait-

“Wait- You’re the one who’s behind all those murders?” Stiles pushed his chair back from the table, feet scrabbling against the floor. Isaac sat straighter in his seat, hands clasped white knuckled around the arms of his chair, eyes darting from his alpha to his friend.

Peter raised a singular eyebrow, lips twitching with less dark humor than before. “Someone’s read their fair share of mystery novels. Though I assure you, I never killed anyone from behind, so I suppose you could say that I am the one in front of those murders.”

Stiles gaped, mouth swanning over exclamations, before his front brain flailed in with, “How do you know that you’re going after the right people? It was years ago!”

Peter steepled his fingers. “The Hale pack has- had, a reputation as one of the strongest most established packs in North America. We had many allies, thus many for whom we were responsible for.” He took a deep breath. “Our home was not the first to be targeted by the Argents. Of course, at first we didn’t know they were behind it. When the Osbourne pack was killed off, I managed to recover some of their documents that they had stored, and to access the reference books they had been using at the library. This was the 90s, you understand. Computers had not become so common-place as they are now. It took me three years to trace the fires, and uncover a pattern of people who would move into town a few months before they would break out.”

“Hunters?”

The alpha nodded. “Evidently. We did not notice it happening in Beacon Hills, because they were already here. We had tried peace talks with the Argents before, and it ended… hm, rather poorly for the packs involved.”

Stiles winced, recalling the black bleeding wound when Derek was shot.

“When I woke up from my coma, I had ample time to mull over what I had already gathered, before my muscles were strong enough to support me. Once I could walk, well, the library has always been a bit slow to update their systems, and the one I put in place when I worked there was easy enough to access. I tracked down one of the hunters the Argents left behind when they moved out, and questioned him. Lucky me, he was not only so sure that no supernatural creatures remained on our land that he went hiking with only his friend at night, but they both were among the arsonists responsible for killing my family.”

“That’s way too convenient,” Stiles said. 

“Fate works in funny ways. And, to be fair, they weren’t the only hunters I encountered who thought it funny to tramp through a werewolf’s territory like they owned the place.” Peter’s gaze drifted, mouth twisting as if he tasted something bitter. His eyes refocused on Stiles. “That, and I saw Kate that night.”

“What?” Stiles leaned forwards. “Dude, if you were a witness, we could go to the cops! We could get her thrown in jail!”

“The Osbourne pack was in the middle of convicting the Calaveras hunter family of killing their alpha on that premise. It spent five years in court, before they were mysteriously killed. I only recognized Kate, because she and her father were involved in those talks I mentioned before. It’s always good to remember the faces of enemies.”

“But still,” Stiles struggled for words. “You can’t just kill them like that!”

“Why not? They killed us first.” Peter extended a hand, and his claws grew wickedly sharp. “I can show you if you want.”

Stiles shuddered, but didn’t back down. “What do you mean?”

The alpha tilted his head, contemplating the teenager. “If you think what I’m doing is unjustified after you see, then I’ll stop.”

Stiles swallowed. “What are you going to do?”

“Our hands hold our traditions, our bites our promises,” he intoned with the sing song cant of childish memorization, before laughing crookedly. 

Stiles frowned, and Peter continue.

“I’m going to use a technique meant to be used to pass down pack histories to the next alpha. Werewolves commonly find a violent end, and one alpha can pass on a first person account of all that they know to the next.The magic can be used in other ways as well, but that’s not important right now.”

“And if I say so.” His eyes were fixed on the claws, hands fisted in his lap. “You’ll stop? You’ll go to the police and explain everything?”

The alpha grinned, teeth sharp and jagged. “You have my word.”  
…

He was on the second floor of the house when he smelled the smoke, Ish’s plush rabbit in his fist. His son had forgotten it in the nursery, and he had-

-tried to break down the basement door, but the passageway was sealed off, as if someone had known where the tunnels were and placed a circle of mountain ash above-

-the eaves were burning, but Talia’s howl told him to run, run, run and-

-jumping through the glass which shattered in a halo around his arms. Peter Rabbit still clutched in his fist. Ish’s voice had gone silent, and his wife, Caliadne’s, high scream reached his ears even so far underground as she was-

-on fire, he was on fire! But if he could just crawl a bit further, just a bit more, he could reach the edge of the circle blocking the pack’s escape. Then Talia could break down the door, and the wolves and humans could get away-

He could see her. She was laughing. Sirens approached. His sight was fading as tissue burned, but he knew that face, and would remember it.

Argent.  
…

Stiles gasped.

A hand clawed over his buzz cut. “That’s it, breathe.”

His head hurt.

“Is he ok?” A higher voice. He knew that voice. A warm weight settled against his side, and curly hair brushed against his cheek as Isaac encroached into his personal space.

“He’ll be fine.”

“Bastard!” Stiles spat at Peter’s retreating back. His hands were shaking, and he clenched them into fists. “A little warning might have been nice! That freaking hurt!” 

Isaac whined, a distinctly canid sound, and pressed himself more firmly against his friend’s side. He placed a hand over the sluggishly bleeding marks on the back of Stiles’s neck, and black lines began to draw the pain away.

The alpha settled into the armchair across from the couch, fingers curled to his palm, claws tucked away. His eyes were closed, brows furrowed as he re-wrapped the memories he had shared.

Derek appeared a moment later with a box of bandaids, evidently returned from his nighttime foray into the forest. Lips pressed tight, he glared at Stiles, until the teen bowed his head. Derek’s touch was gentle as he spread neosporin over the crescent stab wounds, and secured a sticky patch over top.

“He would have been eleven.”

Derek’s hands froze as they drew back from Stiles’s neck. Immediately he stood, back stiff as a poker, and left the house again. The back door slammed shut in his wake. 

Stiles watched him go, dazed, wondering whether he had a secret treehouse he hid in. At his side, Isaac huddled close, watching his alpha as he drew his friend’s pain away. “What?”

Peter did not open his eyes. “Epimetheus Ishmael Hale. His mother’s family had a naming tradition stemming back from their time as a pack in Greece. No one could ever pronounce his correctly, so we just called him Ish.”

Stiles’s mouth went dry.

The alpha continued. “He was five when the fire happened. He would have been eleven...two months ago.” One red eye opened, staring. “So Stiles, should I stop?”

The teen let his head rest against Isaac’s cool palm, and closed his eyes. “Who.”

Peter’s twisted smile grew darker. “The Argents, of course. The arsonists who helped them, but I’m working my way through that list. Any hunters stupid enough to try sniffing around here. Then there’s the druid. He broke his treaty with Talia, and I never let old obligations go undone.”

Stiles looked up, brows high. “A druid, like, worships plants kinda guy? Is that a kind of magical creature too? Are they like dryads? How do you even kill a magic tree?”

The alpha’s laugh was dusty with disuse. “Magical trees are...something else. Druids are humans who, through certain rituals and inclinations, can access magic around them. They’re kind of like ticks. Talia let this one stay on Hale land in exchange for a favor and his allegiance. Apparently, he thought her death would get him out of it.”

“Is that a thing? Managing the supernatural creature real estate market?”

“We all have our own little quirks. Banshi will thin the veil, goblins will make the harvest rot on the branch, things like that. But this is Hale territory, and the others knew better than to rouse the ire of a wolf pack.” A shadow fell on Peter’s face. “Or at least, I’ll make them remember, if they’ve foolishly forgotten.”  
…

Later, after helping the pack of werewolves clear the table and pack up their tomato laden leftovers, Stiles contemplated that sentence.

Werewolves. He had to suppress an excited childish squeal of pure delight. This was so much better than the time he waited by the window till midnight on his eleventh birthday, his mother in the hospital bed behind him, streamers from their little party still taped to the walls. This was /so much better/ because magic really was real- or at least werewolves, so, supernatural magic stuff, whatever. 

There was also the whole murder thing, which Stiles knew he would be having a panic attack over once his high had fallen, but right now he was still coasting above the clouds. 

That thing Derek had done, burning the wolf’s bane, that had so totally been magic, there was a puff of purple smoke and everything. And Peter said that it wasn’t just a werewolf thing, he said humans in a pack could- heck were expected to, do things like that all the time!

And Stiles was pretty sure he was at least on the wolf pack Christmas card list, what with the whole being invited to meet the family thing that had just happened. 

Did he want to be apart of a werewolf pack? Stiles slumped down in his desk chair, swinging back and forth. Remus Lupin was his favorite adult at Hogwarts, but he probably shouldn’t make potentially life altering decisions based on how well he liked fictional characters.

Still.

He booted up his laptop, fingers flying to his keyboard once the google page had loaded. He narrowed his search, then clicked on the web page that looked most promising.

Stiles dialed the number on their contacts page. “Hi! Wood and Lawn nursery? I was wondering if you had any species of wolfsbane in your inventory?”  
...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N:  
> So tomatoes were once called wolf peaches, and they thought if people ate them, they turned into werewolves. Also, look up the werewolf and witch hunts, they’re quite interesting.


	9. Sheriff

…

John hung up his sheriff hat on Monday. 

Deputy Sherrie had practically pushed him out the door with the reprimand that he needed to eat something other than caffeine and hamburgers if he wanted to get anywhere on the string of animal attacks, and the oath that she would ensure the coffee pot was empty for the next week if he didn’t get at least a full night of rest.

He managed to correspond his enforced night off with his son’s lacrosse game. A pang of guilt stabbed his heart when he saw Stiles darting across the field (first line!). When had his kid gotten so grown up?

Ever since Claudia died, John had been throwing himself into his work, true; however he had only started taking night shifts when his son started high school. His wife's illness had severely impacted the Stilinski family savings, and if pulling the graveyard shift meant his son would have a little less debt in college, then so be it. 

Perhaps John had been thinking too much about the future, and not enough about what his son was up to in the present. Because, John knew his son was up to something. It was in the way he dodged questions, words picking up speed whenever he asked his son what he had done that day. His right hand would cut the air as he spoke, an old tell Stiles had had ever since he was three that was a sure fire way to spot a lie.

After the game, Stiles made noises as if he already had plans for the evening, however when John asked, his son quickly changed the topic to something about the history of one of the plays his coach had them run that night, hands flailing through the air like dull butter knives.

John let it go, and made a note to call Sherrie about keeping an eye out for rowdy behavior. Beacon Hills was a small place, and he didn’t put it past the sizeable body of high schoolers to take advantage of the team’s recent victory and throw a party.

Side eyeing his son, the Sheriff made a note to keep his own eye sharp.

As he anticipated, Stiles rushed through a dinner of warmed up chicken pot pie, before claiming that he was tired and ‘going to crash, night dad!’

John waved his son a good night, and went to find his coat. 

Like clockwork he heard his son’s window klonk open not twenty minutes later, sticking half way up, before a sharp pound made it clatter upwards. The Sheriff made a note to hide the WD40 again, so Stiles couldn’t fix the slightly rusty sill like he always threatened.

He heard his son stumble across the roof, heart palpitating in his chest every time he heard a potential slip, images of broken necks dancing behind his eyes. Luckily, by the grace of most likely Claudia, who would have gotten a kick out of his worrying, Stiles leapt from the roof to the tree by his window, and shimmied down to the ground. 

John waited until he heard the jeep’s ignition, and the crunch of tires on asphalt, before he picked up his car keys to follow.

As a father, John wasn't against underage drinking in moderation. He had let his son take sips of whiskey when he broke out a bottle, and Claudia had been a firm believer in sharing wine at the dinner table when curious tongues wanted a taste. However, as a sheriff, John knew that any consumption of alcohol by minors would end in tears and hospital visits if left without adult supervision. 

But, instead of turning down the road John could hear shouting and music, his son’s blue jeep rattled further down towards the woods. 

Maybe a smaller get together then? John would still poke his head in to check things out, of course. 

He frowned when the jeep finally parked in front of a nondescript house. It's lights, save the porch light, were off. Stiles got out of his car, nearly strangling himself with the seatbelt, and knocked on the door. 

John was at the wrong angle to see who answered it, but Stiles soon walked inside. 

Parking his own car, the sheriff took time to answer a handful of emails on his phone, and send a text to the on call deputy to drive by that party a few streets back. 

That done, John put on his jacket, and walked to the front door of the house. He knocked, hands tucked into his pocket, not entirely suppressing the cant of his stance that screamed ‘cop’.

The door opened.

This was not a party. Probably also not his son meeting with a few friends to get drunk. John resisted the urge to run a hand over his face. Just what had Stiles gotten himself into this time?

The face of the man who opened the door looked like a patchwork of stripes, as if someone had clawed over tissue, leaving pink patches of healthy skin in between the remaining raised scars.

“Peter Hale.”

His smirk was just as full of teeth as John remembered. “Deputy! Or, I suppose it’s Sheriff now, isn’t it.”

“You’re looking well for a missing coma patient.” John hooked his thumb in his belt loop, wishing he brought his side arm. 

“I’ve been eating an apple a day to keep away doctors. Exercising. A bit of sunlight here and there.” Blue eyes scrutinized his beat up jeans and Tshirt, under the brown leather jacket. “I assume you’re not here under any official capacity?”

“I was looking for my son, actually.”

“Stiles is upstairs with Isaac and Derek. I didn’t think it safe for them to be running around outside, what with all the hunters in the woods.”

“Didn’t you hear? Chris Argent caught that mountain lion a few days ago.”

“It wasn’t a mountain lion that cut my niece in half, Sheriff.”

John’s spine tensed, though he kept his stance loose with practice. “This doesn’t seem like a conversation we should be having on the doorstep, Peter.”

“Quite right. Would you like to come in?”

“Yes, thanks.” John walked into the house, and tried not to liken the door closing to that of a bear trap.

The two men settled in the sitting room, Peter lowering himself into an armchair, while John stayed standing.

“How long have you been awake Peter?” John kept his voice light and conversational, though his fingers itched for his notepad.

“Long enough.” Peter steepled his fingers. “If you’re asking why I didn’t come forward, it’s because I feared for my life, and for my nephew. The Hale family was involved in assisting with the investigation of a string of arson attacks on the homes of several of our dear friends. I feared that if it was publically known that I was awake, and not just missing, the ones who killed my family would try to finish the job.” Peter’s smile was a bit too manic, blue eyes holding his gaze for far too long. 

John took a step back. Jumping right out of the frying pan and into the fire. He winced at the metaphor, eyes lingering on Peter’s scars. “That’s a big accusation. The fire was ruled an accident.”

“And we both know the insurance agent who ruled that, before his untimely end, was fired for fraud. Do keep up Sheriff.”

“We haven’t released a complete list of suspected victims.” John’s hands were fists in his coat pocket. He really wanted his side arm, but the lamp at his side would make due as a weapon in a pinch. Peter would be recovering from years of muscle atrophy. He could take him.

“I’ve been in the middle of my own investigation into what was done to my family.”

“And, let me guess, the people you’ve been investigating just so happen to match a list of my animal victims?” Peter couldn’t be working alone, he was, as John pointed out before, infirmed. He also didn’t strike him as the kind to train an attack dog, and the house, while smelling of all the usual amenities of a bachelor pad, did not smell of canine. 

“Funny coincidence that.”

John pressed his lips together. He must have an accomplice. “You said Derek was with Stiles and Isaac?”

“Yes. Isaac and Stiles have become quite the dynamic duo. Isaac wasn’t feeling well enough to play at their lacrosse game, and Stiles called earlier to ask if he could come by.”

Ah. That’s why this house seemed familiar: noise violations reported regularly, and an open case that had his hand ready to call child services. “And Isaac’s father is where?”

“Visiting relatives.”

“And you are here with Isaac because..?”

“I knew the boy’s mother. I was most grieved to hear of her passing while I was otherwise indisposed.”

John frowned, but let the reply, that didn’t answer his question at all, slide. Peter had been a fixture of the Beacon Hills Public Library for longer than anyone really knew, and, in such a small town, it meant that Peter had been on a first name basis with nearly everyone in Beacon Hills. John had never been one to curl up at night with a novel, that was always Claudia, but he had passed through the library enough to remember seeing Peter at the desk. Saying that he knew Isaac’s mother didn’t mean much.

He entertained the thought that Isaac might be helping Peter with whatever scheme he was enacting, but, no, he was just a kid. John made a note to check into his school attendance, to see if he had any suspicious absences lining up with any of the crimes just in case. However, his gut didn’t put a teenager able to do… well, those crimes were not something a teenager could do alone.

The accomplice couldn't be Derek either. The young man had an alibi of being on the road till the day his sister’s body was found, and a handful of receipts from diners and gas stations to provide a timeline. 

Besides, he wouldn't have had anything to do with killing his sister. 

But Laura's death did not line up with the deaths of the other victims. True, she looked savaged by an animal, but she also bore other wounds consistent with metal blades. 

Perhaps Peter was right to fear for his safety. Perhaps he decided to take the law into his own hands and hired someone?

Maybe there were multiple groups of killers on the loose. Maybe Peter was telling the truth, and just very informed without being an active participant. 

He couldn't just arrest Peter. Either his accomplice could still be running free and murdering with him behind bars, or if someone was after Peter, he would be at risk of being a victim himself.

John shook his head. Thoughts to ponder later.

He tried at a different angle. “You were saying that you were investigating some things yourself. Maybe you could tell me a bit about what you’ve found out?”

“I'm afraid if you're looking for a monologue revealing one huge conspiracy, you're looking in the wrong genre.”

“From what you've told me though, that doesn't seem to be far off from the truth.”

“What, a family burnt alive while researching other fires. No, purely coincidental. Isn't that what your office ruled before?”

“It wasn't my office back then. I've only been sheriff for four years, and the case wasn't assigned to me.”

“And you're curious now for purely academic reasons.”

“People connected with the fire are dying suspiciously. It's my job to find justice.”

“Justice,” Peter spat. “They killed my wife- /my son/!”

For a moment, John swore Peter’s eyes flashed red, but the sheriff held his ground. “I know. But if this what you’re saying, an attempt to cover up anyone investigating all those fires, then just killing off the people directly responsible for the fire that killed your family means that you won’t get them all.”

Peter stilled, an errie lack of movement that set the hairs on the back of John’s neck upright, and made him feel like the cat that wandered into the dog kennel. 

“Let me help you Peter. I can put you and your nephew into protective custody, and we can get justice for your family, not just revenge.” John took a breath. “They tried to stop you from getting the whole truth. Don’t you think the best revenge would be to get to it anyway, and expose this whole mess?”

Peter looked at him, blue eyes intent. “You’re sincere about this, aren’t you.”

“Of course I am! Criminals shouldn’t get away with killing families! The law is there to stop these things from happening.”

The room stood suspended in a moment. John could hear Peter inhaling deeply through his nose, feel the rock steady pulse of his own heart, and the way his hands didn't shake. Steady, ready. He really wished he brought his side arm. The moment passed, as did the test John somehow found himself the center of. 

“All right, Sheriff.” Peter leaned forward , elbows balancing on his knees, while he steepled his hands beneath his scarred chin. “I will tell you a little bit of what I’ve uncovered, and if I like how handle the situation, I’ll consider bringing you in on the rest.”

“All right.” John said, knowing when to concede a fight in favor of the battle. 

“I was going to question the chemist at the school. One of the...individuals I spoke with before mentioned that a local chemist gave them the recipe for a quick burning accelerant. The only chemist I knew in town back then was Mr. Harris. He never turned his books in on time, and had horrible taste in romance novels.” Peter rolled his neck in a shrug. “Also he might have intentionally had a hand in killing my family.”

“Threat of legal repercussion is more likely to get you a reliable answer than physical violence. Under torture, someone will say anything.” John pointed out.

The other man smirked. “I have a knack for sniffing out the truth.”

Which was a point towards him having an accomplice going about on a murder spree. Though, Peter was still infirmed, so perhaps he had he had simply spoken to … his informant. Who then died in an animal attack. Sure. That totally sounded likely. 

John sighed. So much for his night off. “I'll make a point to speak to him.”  
…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Monday Feb 7
> 
> So, second or third favorite pairing is peter/sheriff, but I think it might not work out that way here. Sigh.


	10. Allison

Allison thought that Beacon Hills would be a fresh new start. She thought that about every school she had been to, but this time she really thought her hopes would stick.

At first it seemed like everything was going to be great. She made friends at the popular table, always had people to sit with, and a cute boy who was super nice to date. She thought everything would be great.

Then her father’s business associates started to show up.

It always went like this. They moved to a new place, her dad or mom knew someone already living in town, so they would always come over to ‘talk business’. Then either her mom or dad would start staying out later, then a few months into the semester Allison would be packing up her bags and ready to move to a new town.

At least they got a house here. Maybe that meant they would be staying for longer. The last time they had gotten a house, they had stayed for a year. She didn’t miss the town house in San Francisco; it was very cramped. The new house even had a guest room for Auntie Kate to visit!

Aunt Kate was the nicest surprise; Allison hadn’t seen her for months. Her first day in town she insisted on taking Allison out for ice cream to a little local diner.

“Wow, I didn’t know this place was even here!” Allison had said over a scoop of vanilla.

Aunt Kate had winked. “Only locals know about it- it’s been here forever.”

“Did you used to live in Beacon Hills?”

Aunt Kate shrugged, sticking a spoon of whipped cream and cherries into her mouth. “A long time ago, just for a few months.”

Back at the house, Aunt Kate had even offered to take her shooting, though her dad put a stop to that when he heard.

“She needs to learn the trade some time Chris,” her aunt had scolded.

Her dad had frowned, but only pressed his lips together.

Her parents were tense after that. Allison knew it to mean they might be moving again soon. She tried not to let it bother her, despite how her hopes fell.  
…

Tuesday morning started like it always did, with an hour long chemistry lecture.

Scott was waiting for her like always. Allison had never had a boyfriend last this long before. There was that one guy she dated for a week at her last school, but it didn’t count, as she moved before the relationship could get anywhere. Scott was...nice. Really really super nice. He always wanted to spend time with her. Always wanted to hang out in class, at lunch, after school, before school. 

It was on the way to first period chemistry, Scott trailing behind her struggling to carry her books, when she noticed a crowd of people by the door.

“What’s going on?” she asked, approaching a familiar head of red hair.

Lydia glanced down at her, glance sharp, before she deliberately widened her eyes. “Gosh, I don’t know. Someone’s inside talking to Mr. Harris.”

As she spoke, the latch on the door clicked. The crowd of students shuffled aside to make room, and Allison found herself right in front of the swung open door.

“I’ll let you know if I have any more questions,” the stranger in the door said. The tan uniform and star badge on his chest betrayed him as the town Sheriff.

The crowd of teenagers murmured, shuffling, but not really moving to give enough room for the man to leave. The Sheriff turned, probably to ask Allison and the rest of the group to move along. However, when he looked at her, his eyes switched from the disinterested far away gaze of someone thinking about what would happen in the future, to a crashing persistent focus in the present. His eyes darted up from her neck to meet her eyes.

“I’m sorry, Miss. Can I ask where you got your necklace?”

Allison raised a hand to the silver pendant around her neck. “My aunt gave it to me.”

The man considered her. “Miss…?”

“Allison Argent.”

“Right, Miss Argent. Would you mind answering a few questions for me?”

The hissing of the crowd grew fevered. Allison shifted her grip on her bag.

“Allison’s not in trouble, is she?” Scott piped up from behind her shoulder. “She didn’t do anything!”

The Sheriff looked beyond her at the teenage boy, face falling into an exasperated line of familiarity. “She’s not in trouble Scott. I just need to ask her a few questions.”

Allison could practically hear her boyfriend puff himself up to defend her honor, so she whipped around to flash him a wide smile. “Can you take my books to my desk? This won’t take long.”

Scott smiled widely in return, nodding like a bobble head, before rushing into the classroom to their usual seats. At the end of the crowd another boy made as if to say something to the Sheriff. He was very pale, with a few moles and close cropped hair. Allison thought he might be a member of the lacrosse team, but didn’t know his name. The Sheriff made a sharp motion with his head, indicating the boy should go into the classroom. His mouth snapped shut audibly, but he complied with a scowling pout.

The door clicked shut, leaving the Sheriff and Allison alone in the hallway. He led her just around the corner, away from the door of the chemistry room.

“Can I ask you where you got that necklace?” he said, notepad in hand.

“From my aunt Kate. It was a birthday present.”

“Do you know where she got it from?”

Allison shrugged. “It’s a family heirloom.”

The Sheriff wrote a line in his notepad. “And do you know whether your aunt Kate has ever been to Beacon Hills?”

She bit her lip. “Is she in trouble?”

“No,” the Sheriff said shortly, closing his notebook with a snap. “Thank you for for your time. You should be heading off to class-”

At that moment the Sheriff’s cell phone went off. His attention slid away from Allison, as he reached into his pocket.

Allison took the opportunity to walk back towards the chemistry classroom. However, instead of returning to class, she stopped just around the corner, ears intent. If her aunt Kate was in trouble, Allison needed to know about it. It all must be some horrible mistake, of course it must be. Her aunt would never do anything to hurt anyone!

“I’m in the middle of work right now,” the Sheriff was saying into his phone. He paused while whoever was on the other line replied. “I’m not at liberty to discuss an open case with you, even if you are the one to give me a tip. “

Allison frowned. Someone told the Sheriff to investigate aunt Kate?

“By the way, I need to take a statement from you regarding a necklace. It’s silver, imprinted with a wolf paw-”

The voice on the over line roared so loudly Allison could hear it. “That necklace was an heirloom of the Osbourne pack before the Argents- !” 

“Calm down!” The Sheriff barked, silencing the speaker. “If what you’re saying is true, then this investigation will be crossing state lines, and the FBI will become involved. We need to gather evidence to make our case. Jumping the gun achieves nothing.”

The Sheriff said a few more words, before hanging up. Allison took that as her cue to slip back into the chemistry classroom.

Scott beamed at her when she slid into the seat he had saved for her. Allison smiled back distractedly, mind whirling with what she had just heard. Why was her aunt getting investigated by the FBI? What did it have to do with her necklace? Her hand rose to touch the base of her neck. Cool silver burned her fingers with potential possibilities.  
...

By Thursday, the conversation with the Sheriff had dropped to the back of her mind. Allison considered telling her parents, but thought they would take that as motivation to start packing up the house again. Which...was not suspicious activity. She resolved not to bring it up until something happened. 

School passed as it always did, with Scott constantly at her side. She chatted with Lydia in the stands while he was at lacrosse practice, and the couple was just leaving the front doors of the school to do some studying, when a familiar black car pulled up in front of them.

The window rolled down, and auntie Kate smiled from the driver’s seat. “Hey Allie! Hop in! I’ve got a big surprise I want to show you!”

Allison smiled back, perhaps a touch less enthusiastic than usual. “Scott and I were going to study for our exam Friday.”

Kate leered over Allison’s shoulder to where Scott stood, hands looped loosely in the straps of his backpack. “I’m sure you both will have enough time for ‘studying’ later.” Her gaze shifted back to Allison. “Come on! It’s just in the preserve, I promise I’ll have you back before curfew!”

“It’s all right,” Scott said, sounding like a kicked puppy. “We can skype later?”

Allison kissed his cheek. “Sure thing!”  
…

Kate drove them across town; further than Allison had ever needed to venture when exploring shops and the local mall complex. The houses gave way entirely to trees, instead of interspersing the foliage as seemed to be the custom of Beacon Hills. 

A sign flashed by with faded lettering spelling out a welcome, and information about fires, jogging, dogs, and campsites. 

“Dad’s been hunting in the preserve,” Allison commented. “Won't let me even go jogging in it, even though he caught that mountain lion.”

Kate giggled like a schoolgirl with a secret. “Is that what he's been telling you?”

The car pulled up a battered road, which once might have been gravel, before the forest retook it. 

“Well, yeah. That's what was behind those animal attacks, right?”

A structure loomed behind the clustering trees. It may have once been homely, but the blasted windows an thorough coating of ash only made it seem empty and sad. 

Kate parked the car and slid out onto the loamy ground, Allison fumbling with her seatbelt to follow. 

“Are you taking me shooting?” The setting reminded Allison of the many similar shooting ranges and paintball arenas her father’s associates owned. It was where she first learned to shoot a bow, alongside her mother. “Dad won't let me use the guns.”

“Another time,” Kate assured, ascending the fire scarred steps, boot heels clicking. “Come on, I want to show you your surprise!”

Smiling a little at her aunt’s enthusiasm, Allison followed, grateful that she was wearing pascal boots, instead of slippers.

The inside of the house was just as barren as the innards of a burnt out shell could be, with any lingering debris having been cleared away, leaving behind only a layer of dust and grime. Allison didn’t get a chance to explore the area more thoroughly, as her aunt was already skipping to what once might have been the kitchen, and down the cellar stairs.

Allison followed a step behind, eyes watching her feet to make sure she didn’t misstep. However, the old wood held firm, despite the wear marking its surface, and Allison soon found herself on solid packed dirt.

She looked up.

Allison was expecting something her father would disapprove of- fireworks, knife throwing range, maybe a grenade or two for Kate to teach her how to throw. She was not expecting this. 

It was a man, strung up by his wrists to a metal grate. His eyes were closed, wincing spasms wrinkling his brow in time to the twitching of his limbs. A low electrical hum betrayed the source of his strange dance, and Allison tasted bile in the back of her throat. 

“And here is our monster boy!”

Her aunt bounced from the foot of the stairs to a table littered with wires and blades, many of which were stained a crusty brown. Her fingers danced over the array, before slipping a pencil thin scapel between her fingers.

“Aunt Kate?” Allison hadn’t moved, eyes frozen on the man.

Kate looked at her coyly over a shoulder. “Oh, don’t sound so put out Allison, it’s not like it’s human. Next time I’ll find you a better surprise, maybe one that’s already been torn up a bit?”

“Aunt Kate-” her voice broke, unable to articulate her dizzying thoughts. 

Kate sighed, longsufferingly, and waltzed towards her captive. “Here, I’ll show you.” 

Reaching up, she stabbed the scalpel between the man’s rib bones. Immediately his mouth opened in a soundless roar, as if repetition had stolen his voice. Fangs elongated from his gums, twisting his handsome features into something bumpy and grotesque. 

Allison took a step back, ankles hitting the bottom step of the stairs.

“See Allie?” Kate said, voice conversationally light. “These monsters are everywhere. You've got to be careful. Chris isn't doing his job by keeping you in the dark, and it's about time you took up the family legacy and started hunting.”

Allison looked at her aunt, taking in her cheerful demeanor and manic smile. The FBI were looking for her. But she was chasing monsters. She must have done this to other people before. They weren’t people, they were monsters. 

The man screamed, as a fresh new jolt of electricity shuddered through his muscles, causing his eyes to flash blue, and skin sizzle.

Kate laughed delicately.

Allison felt her gut twist. The man’s shoulders slumped as he hung in the chains, weakly spasming with each buzz of sparks, unresisting. Kate wasn’t even asking him any questions. What was the point of keeping him here like this?

There must be a point, Allison told herself. Her aunt wouldn’t just keep a ...thing down here to torture it.

Right?  
…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N:
> 
> Wednesday feb 9
> 
> I don’t really like writing Allison either. At the beginning of this story, I seriously contemplated killing off all the Argents, but couldn’t get it to fit in with what I was writing. *sigh*


	11. Derek

Derek wondered how he got here.

Not here now, exactly, hanging on a steel grate with electricity coursing through his muscles. No, he knew exactly how he got here.

Derek just wanted to go home.

The day had started normally enough. Isaac woke with his alarm, yet still somehow vaulted down the stairs minutes before he would be late for school. Derek had thrown a bag lunch at him as he dashed out the door (he remembered how the Beacon High cafeteria had such small portions for a growing wolf), and glared until the teen was out of sight.

He had then completed his morning exercises, and began to discreetly patrol the edges of the preserve bordering the pack’s den. It didn’t smell like anyone new had encroached on their territory, but hunters knew how to disguise their scents to not be tracked by wolves, so it didn’t make him feel any less paranoid.

Peter was awake in the master bedroom, doing something on his laptop, if the typing of keys was any indication. Derek chose not to disturb him as he prowled around the house, putting a load of laundry into the wash, and checking the fridge to make sure they hadn’t run out of milk. They had.

On the way back from grocery shopping, the werewolf detoured along Isaac’s preferred path back from school, and rolled down the window.

“Get in,” he had barked. The groceries were in the trunk, leaving the passenger seat clear.

Isaac gave him a shy grin, but unhesitatingly opened the Camaro’s door. His scent bubbled happily, like the scent of pollen and honey on a bee.

“How was school,” Derek growled, shifting the car into gear.

“Great!” the teen chirped. “Stiles and I are doing an English project together. It’s on a Midsummer Night’s Dream; he wants to do something about Puck as the Trickster archetype.”

Derek didn’t respond as Isaac chattered about his friend. It was good for a pup to have a strong support network to anchor his emotions. His scowl deepened. That thought spoke in Peter’s- the old Peter’s- his Peter’s voice. Teasing, but playfully so, and a bit like a narrator reciting from a book.

“Stiles smells like us sometimes.”

Derek refocused on Isaac. “Like pack?” The human did spend a lot of time around Isaac, perhaps the scent had rubbed off.

Isaac furrowed his brows, nose wrinkling. “Not exactly? It’s like… kinda bitter sweet, and a little smoky like a campfire, but not the kind of campfire that uses hardwood, like one that uses those artificial logs.”

Derek paused, fingers hovering over his turn signal.

Isaac continued, oblivious. “You and alpha smell like that all the time, and Stiles does too sometimes. Is it a werewolf association thing? Am I going to smell like that too?”

“That’s the scent of sorrow.” The older wolf turned at the corner.

“Oh.”

They hadn’t spoken again, until Derek had parked. Isaac said something about homework, and make a break for the door. Derek could hear him pounding up the stairs to go to his room, but remained in the car.

He should take the groceries out of the trunk. Should make sure his pack was fed, his alpha healing, his fellow beta comforted.

But.

Derek unclenched his hands from around the steering wheel, closed the car door gently behind himself, and walked into the woods.

He had just wanted to go home.

He wanted his alpha- his mother. Quick hugs and kisses under the green light through trees, scents of family, and love-love-love. He wanted his sister- his alpha. Whispered tears and promises to never leave, lasting embraces as if they were the last- the last until it was the last. He wanted to get yelled at for running through his father’s garden, to get scolded for teasing Cora, to be so smothered with affection his face burnt with embarrassment. But all he had was his uncle, and the complicated ball of rage and guilt which roiled inside of his chest.

His feet carried him along the familiar root path curves of the preserve to the Hale House. 

Someone was already waiting when he got there.

A jolt of electricity pulled him from his thoughts, and a bucket of water was thrown over his head.

“Wakey, wakey cutie!” Kate’s voice was saccharine sweet. It made Derek’s skin crawl, as every strand of hair on his person stood to attention, like a porcupine. “Now, let’s get a look at those pretty eyes!”

She wrapped another line of cable from her workbench around her fist, and waltzed over to where another car battery sat waiting by the edge of the steel grate. She clamped one end of the cable to the battery, and attached the other to the metal. It sparked, and she hissed, sucking daintily on her fingers at the small burn.

Derek writhed, feeling the current at his back redouble, causing his skin to blister as the electricity whirled through his body, trying to ground itself.

His eyes flashed blue despite himself as he roared through his spasmodically clenching jaw.

His silence would kill him.

But he knew not for a long while.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> …  
> A/N:  
> feb 10
> 
> Angry Derek doing mundane things is so cute to me. Update, he still is not emotionally stable enough to have normal human interactions. Not for lack of trying though.
> 
> So, just FYI, in canon Derek was held by Kate for ten, count ‘em 10, days. And everyone is just, ok with this. Seriously this show, objectively terrible. But, dayam, it’s got good fanfiction.


	12. Scott

Scott didn’t understand a lot of things. It was why he liked to work so much with animals. They didn’t ask about complicated math problems, or for essays about things he didn’t care about. They either liked you, or they didn’t, and those which didn’t like you could be avoided or bought off with treats.

He dreamed of one day becoming a veterinarian with his own practice, though, with his slipping grades, was encouraged by his mother to choose a more practical career of managing an animal shelter. He tried reading one of the books Deaton kept in the back of the clinic, and nearly gagged at an anatomically correct drawing of a ferret’s digestive tract. Realizing his mother might have a point, Scott had begun scouting for positions at the shelter at the edge of town.

He reasoned that getting a grasp on the business and promotional side of things was just as important as animal care, which he had been learning at the vet office, so he should try and get experience in that while he still could. Maybe he could turn that into a business degree? Nonprofit work? He would decide next year what he wanted to do in college, but might as well get an idea of what to expect. 

The shelter got back to him a few weeks into the new semester, and Scott gave Deaton his two weeks notice. Luckily Allison thought working at a shelter was a great idea, and drove him the three days out of the week that he worked to go play with the kittens in the guise of volunteering. Changing workplace shook up his scheduled routine quite a bit, but Scott felt comfortable enough with how stable the rest of his life was to risk going for it. 

Scott thought everything was going great. He had a girlfriend, an office job that paid better than his old one, and still let him play with puppies, and a plan for the future. 

Then-

Then the earth pulled the rug out from underneath his feet, and he was sprawling in the void. 

Allison hadn’t picked up his call.

When it happened on Thursday night, Scott pouted, but guessed that Allison was still out with her aunt, and her phone was out of reach. He still hadn’t gotten any reply to his multitude of messages by Friday morning, and waited for Allison, breath bated at the front of the school, only to have to run all the way to his first period class.

Panting, he saw his girlfriend sitting beside Lydia, and their customary seat taken up by Jackson and Danny. Scott shifted from foot to foot, before sneaking into an empty chair by the door. He caught up with Allison after class, snagging her elbow in the hallway.

“Hey! Are you alright? You didn’t answer my text?”

“Oh sorry,” she said, distractedly. “I’ve just been- a lot’s happening right now.”

A jolt of concern fried the circuits of his brain. “Are you ok?”

She smiled, cheeks dimpling, and his mind flatlined. “It’s nothing, don’t worry about it.”

Scott nodded. “Ok. Do you need help carrying your books?”

“I’ve got it,” she said. “Need to stop by my locker. I’ll see you next period?”

“Ok…” Scott said, but she was already walking away.

The rest of the day didn’t improve. Though he managed to snag his usual seat at her side in classes, Allison’s laughter was infrequent, and she kept asking him to repeat what he had said while talking to her.

She begged off going to the shelter with him, and Scott was forced to bike the two miles to get there in a hurry. 

Allison continued to not reply to any of his texts, not even a picture of the new kittens!

He spent the night after work and much of the early morning refreshing his phone’s inbox. Eventually, he fell asleep, cheek squished against the screen.

When he woke up, still with no reply from his girlfriend, the teenager felt his stomach drop out.

Scott knew this could only mean one thing. 

Picking up his phone once more, he dialed. It rang twice, before being picked up.

“Look Scott, now’s not a really good time-”

“Stiles, I’m sorry.” His breath caught in his throat. “I was- I was being a douche. B-but, I really need you right now.”

The receiver became muffled, as if being held against something to block any sound getting through.

“-friend since we were seven!” Stiles’s broken voice said.

“- haven’t talked - in weeks! -expects you- come running - drop of a hat? -needs you here - !” Scott didn’t recognize that voice. It sounded about their age- but Stiles didn't hang out with anyone else in their class, right? He would tell Scott if he did.

Scott didn’t hear Stiles’s reply, but soon his friend was speaking back into the phone. “I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

“Th-thanks man.” Scott sniveled. 

He hung up, and spent the intermittent time hugging a pillow to his chest and crying. His mother was taking a morning shift at the ER, and his wails were undisturbed, until he heard the front door open. Feet pounded on the stairs, and the door to his bedroom flung itself open.

“What’s wrong?” Stiles was panting, a backpack hanging haphazardly off one shoulder. “I got your inhaler, is it an attack? Do you need me to drive you to the hospital? Can you breathe?”

Scott stuttered out a wheezing sob, and buried his face further into his pillow. “It’s Allison! I think she’s going to break up with me!” 

The frantic light in Stiles’s eye blinked out, before the void quickly sizzled with anger. “Dude, seriously?”

“She- she ha-hasn’t been picking up my calls, and- and-”

“Scott.” Stiles took a deep breath. “You’ve been my best friend since we were seven, but there are other things going on in the world than your girl trouble!”

His expression changed at the watery gasps issuing from the other boy’s mouth. He dug in his backpack. “Here,” he said, passing over an inhaler. “Take a puff before you suffocate.”

Scott uncurled enough to extend a hand. His first attempts to breathe were aborted, but he finally managed to inflate his lungs with a gasp of vaporized medication. He dropped the inhaler on the bed, and re-wrapped himself around his pillow with a sniff.

Stiles’s eyes darted to the door, his hands fiddling with the straps of his bag, before he relented, and looked back at his friend. “Right, so, tell me what happened. I’ve got, like, fifteen minutes before I need to run.”

Fresh tears pricked the corners of Scott’s eyes, twisting his face into a mask of angst.

“Her Aunt picked her up after school, said she was going to show her something in the woods. Then when I try to skype her that night, she didn’t pick up!” Scott hiccuped into his pillow. “And- and when I tried to call her, she didn’t answer, not even any of my texts- and-”

“Wait,” Stiles cut in with a decisive jerk of his hand. “Repeat that last part.”

Scott looked up, face marred by confusion and snot. “She didn’t answer my texts?”

“No, something about her aunt showing her something?”

Scott sniffed noisily. “Yeah. Her aunt Kate showed up friday to pick her up after school on Friday. Said she had a surprise for her, or something, in the preserve.”

Stiles was eerily still, gaze focused. “Did she say where in the preserve? This is really important Scott.”

Scott sniveled. “I dunno. Just the preserve, I guess. Allison says her aunt does that a lot- taking her to old abandoned buildings and burnt our houses and stuff to teach her how to fire guns and stuff.”

Stiles’s face was alight with inner realization, as he smacked his palm against his forehead. “Criminals always return to the scene of the crime!” His voice was distant, already miles away. He dug his hand into his pocket, already turning to dash down the stairs. “Thanks Scott, gotta run-!”

“Wait, what about-” But the front door had already slammed closed.

Scott pressed his face against his pillow, tears being absorbed by the cotton. What could be more important than this? Scott needed Stiles, and he goes running off somewhere else when he calls at the drop of a hat? 

He pulled out his phone. Still no response from Allison. His lungs seized over a fresh boute of sobs, and and his vision began to blur from more than tears. Scrabbling across the bedspread, he grabbed the inhaler , and took a quick puff before the lack of oxygen did worse than make him light headed.

Scott groaned. His head hurt, his lungs hurt, his friend ditched him when he needed him the most, and his girlfriend was breaking up with him. He contemplated leaping out of bed and running all the way to Allison’s house, where he would climb through her window and proclaim his love for her, and then they would kiss and make up, and live happily ever after. However, he knew he wouldn’t make it down the block with his lungs.

Life was so unfair.  
…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> …  
> A/N:
> 
> Friday feb 11-Saturday
> 
> Look, I don’t like Scott. He’s a narrative device for the audience’s perspective, which makes writing a series easier, but he’s not a very compelling lego brick. 
> 
> That being said, from the perspective of my narration, he is also a very convenient plot device.


	13. Stiles

Stiles decided that he really needed to do more cardio. Though perhaps, he reflected, that wouldn’t really help him to keep up with a pack of enraged werewolves.

Seriously, his life though.

After running out on Scott, Stiles had called Isaac, who had handed the phone immediately to Peter. The alpha listened silently as Stiles drove down the road one handed, explaining how criminals always returned to the scene of the crime, and Kate was doing something in the woods, and they hadn't checked the old Hale House when looking for Derek, had they, so-

By that point the line went dead with a crunch of plastic, and Stiles redirected his route from the den to the preserve. 

Stiles pointedly did not allow himself to remember the promise he had made to his father the week before about staying out of trouble. After that first full moon, where Isaac spent most of the night being sat on by Derek and Stiles broke out his collection of disney films to calm the werewolves down, his father had caught him just as he had snuck through the back door.

The Sheriff had pinned his son to the spot with the crossed armed disappointed stance of parents everywhere. “It’s after midnight. Where were you?”

The teen froze, shoulders drawing up like a startled cat. “Dad! Hi! You shouldn’t be up, you have work tomorrow! You know, doing Sheriff...things.”

“I switched with Deputy Sherrie to get the night shift. Where were you?”

His mouth worked like a dying fish. “I- I was over- Scott! I was over Scott’s house! He was doing a thing, and-”

“Stop lying to me Stiles!”

Stiles drew back as if burned, mouth snapping shut.

“I know you’ve been going through my case files again, which is the only reason I can imagine why you decided to go looking for a missing coma patient, and get yourself tangled in a situation you find the need to lie about to me!”

“It’s not like that!” Stile protested.

His father fixed him with a steely stare. “So where were you tonight?”

The teen’s mouth flapped like a landed fish.

“Nothing? Let me try then. You snuck out of the house, on a school night no less, to associate with several suspects in an open investigation, an investigation I am heading I might remind you, to satisfy your own curiosity-”

“It’s not like that!” He backtracked. “Ok, it’s kinda like that, but it’s not like that entirely!”

His father raised an eyebrow.

Stiles took a breath and met his father’s eye squarely. “Isaac is my friend, ok? I went to go hand out with him.”

“And his missing coma patient boarder.”

“Is that what this is about? Peter Hale?” Stiles’s hands flailed exasperatedly. “I can’t believe-”

A hand landing on his shoulder broke the teen mid buildup to his rant. “Son, there’s a lot going on here that you don’t understand.” Stiles looked ready to roll his eyes, but the Sheriff’s growl kept his impertinence at bay. “Part of it is Peter, yes. If he’s not outright dangerous himself, he’s in the middle of a group of people who most definitely are. I need you safe. Please.” The shoulder clap slid into a hug. “Please. Just, promise me you’ll take a step back until the investigation is over. I know Isaac is your friend, and you feel like you have to help him, but you’re my son, and it’s my number one job to keep you safe.”

John pulled back, Stiles’s expression sober and contemplative. “Just promise me you’ll stay out of trouble.”

“Ok.” His son’s voice was nearly inaudible. “I’m sorry I worried you.”

Stiles really did intend to keep his promise. But then…

But then Derek went missing. 

When Derek hadn’t returned after dropping Isaac home on Thursday, the pack initially didn’t think much of it. Derek was known to take runs around the forest at odd hours. That optimistic thought was shattered, however, when Peter bolted upright from a deep sleep, eyes burning red, pack bonds screaming. Isaac had awoken as well in response to his alpha’s terrified rage. The two wolves had immediately begun to search for the wayward beta, only finding a trunk full of spoiled milk and other groceries in the camero.

Stiles had stopped by after Friday lacrosse practice to find out where Isaac had been instead of school, and, after a few frantic phone calls, found the wolves prowling through the abandoned industrial sector, left over from the town’s brief heyday as an inland rail line from the canning districts near the coast. Upon hearing of Derek’s disappearance, he joined the search, silently praying his father wouldn’t check on him during his all night shift at the station. 

He camped in the back of his Jeep Friday night, with Isaac snoozing on top of him. Peter had dug into a wellspring of here-to-unknown power, and refused to stop his prowl through the jungle of cement and steel. Hunters could hide their scents, the alpha had growled, could hide pack mates calling for help through their bonds, too, if given enough time to prepare. Stiles nearly cracked his face in half yawning while asking how exactly that was done, and Peter had ushered the two teens into the car to sleep. 

Stiles had stared at the Jeep’s ceiling, unable to close his eyes, and fully prepared to spend all weekend searching for the wayward wolf. He was just composing how exactly he would phrase an absentee note for school on Monday, when the call from Scott had come.

He jolted back to the present with a screech of brakes, as his jeep skid of leaf litter.

Stiles could hear growling and gunfire from the back of the house, and had a moment of angry tittering over the legality of automatic weaponry, which he squashed before it could descend into outright panic. 

He shouldn't be here. He should turn the keep around right now and call his dad- no, then his dad might get shot. He couldn't- he wouldn't get him involved. It was- supernatural, yeah, not police stuff. His dad shouldn't be involved. 

He ignored the traitorous part of his brain that reminded him of how his father was already involved, what with his investigating the old Hale fire case. But behind a desk was safer than here. Definitely. 

The gunfire cut out with a scream, and Stiles’s knuckles clenched white around the steering wheel. A familiar body in jeans and a sweater barreled around the side of the ruined house, scaling the porch in one leap, and vanishing through the front door. 

“Isaac!” Stiles yelped, nearly strangling himself with the seatbelt as he fell out of the car. Praying that no more hunters were lurking with guns, he ran after the werewolf. 

Following the sounds of growling, Stiles went through the ashy remains of a hallway and kitchen, before teetering on the edge of the basement stairs. Snarls emulated from the gloom. 

“Right,” Stiles panted, hands braced on the doorframe, who’s door was missing among the debris scattered in piles through the house. “Dark spooky basement, definitely monsters at the bottom. Gunfight outside, more crazy hunters most likely on the way. This is the stupidest thing I've ever done.”

Gritting his teeth, he descended the ash drenched stairs. His feet hit dirt sooner than he expected, revealing a table stacked with what looked like half the props from Saw, and Isaac about to reach for the limp body hanging off a metal grate on the wall. 

“Don’t touch him!” Stiles called, prompting a snarl from the enraged beta. Ignoring the warning, stiles walked closer, the buzz of live wires making the hair on the back of his arms stand on end. 

“We need to turn the electricity off, here-” Tracing the wires where they connected to the metal bars, Stiles detached the car jumper cables from the blocky batteries. He hissed, stuffing his fingers into his mouth, as a heated spark zapped through his hand. 

The hum of electricity stopped, and Isaac wasted no more time in pulling his pack mate down. Derek’s wrist lolled limply against the chains holding him, prompting another snarl from Isaac. He made as if to wrench the chains with his bare hands, possibly one of Derek's arms behind, but Stiles flailed. 

“Woah, hey, hold your horses!” He dug through the pile of sharp things on the table, unearthing a ring of keys with a happy, “Ahha!”

He prodded at the metal chains, weary of sparks, until he found the padlock. Isaac, with more care than his feral appearance suggested he had, lowered Derek to the ground, once the chains were unlocked. 

“His heart.” Isaac’s words were slurred through his fangs. “It's not beating!” He shook Derek's shoulders, as if trying to wake him up, eyes blazing yellow. 

Stiles nudged him aside roughly with a shoulder. “My friend Scott has asthma, so I took a CPR class when I was twelve. Move over!”

Tilting Derek’s head back, Stiles folded his hands over his sternum, where ropy electrical burn marks twisted over pale skin. Locking his elbows, he threw his body weight into a downwards compression. “Come on, come on!” He counted thirty chest compressions, before pinching the werewolf’s nose, exhaling two rescue breaths, and beginning the cycle all over again.

With each compression, Stiles imagined forcing light into the still chest, each push a glowing jolt of life to bring him back from the brink. He leaned down again, blowing a lungful of white hot air -breathe!- into the werewolf. 

His lips tingled, and Stiles spared a glance to see whether Derek was still in contact with a live wire.

Isaac whined, clawed hands wringing together, as if trying to hold back the urge to reach for his pack mate. 

Derek moaned as Stiles compressed his chest again, prompting the teen to back off. Isaac lunged, wrapping his hands around his pack mate’s shoulders to help him into a sitting position. The veins on his arms turned black, and Stiles stared, but refrained from asking. There were rather more pressing things happening.

“Hey there, big guy. Growl once if you can hear me.” Derek’s eyes slitted open, glaring blue at Stiles. The teen’s hands flailed away from the wolf’s shoulder. “Or that. Yeah, he’s fine.”

“What-” Derek coughed. Isaac whimpered in sympathy. Derek laid a hand on his pack mate’s arm, and squeezed reassuringly. Isaac’s posture became marginally less tense, though he didn’t let go.

There was a roar above, and the sound of a gun discharging.

Isaac’s eyes flared yellow, face pulling back into a snarling muzzle of teeth. In a blur of movement, he threw himself up the rickety basement stairs, claws scrabbling against the wood as he used all fours to climb.

Derek made to follow, eyes glowing as well, but his muscles locked before he could even lift his hips off the cement floor. Stiles immediately laid a hand on his chest, feeling the frantic beat of his heart through his ribs. The wolf glared at him, eyes vivid blue, but Stiles remained unmoved. 

“Dude, how can you even move? You were literally dead, like, a minute ago.Your heart was stopped and everything! Though, I guess technically that doesn’t make you dead, unless it’s been stopped for a few minutes, but who knows how long you were flatlining before we got here, and-”

“Shut up Stiles,” Derek growled between clenched teeth. His clawed fingers tangled in the collar of Stiles’s plaid shirt, muscles straining to remember how to move without pain. “Help me up.”

“It wouldn’t kill you to say please you know,” Stiles grumbled, even as he hitched the werewolf’s arm over his shoulder and heaved. 

They managed to get Derek to his feet after a few false starts, and began to climb the stairs. Stiles nearly slipped, but by then Derek had managed to gain enough strength to stand on his own, and the arm he had around the other’s neck tightened, preventing his fall.

“Thanks,” Stiles grunted, face smashed into a bicep.

Derek didn’t reply, in favor of exiting the basement staircase into what once might have been the kitchen. The back door leading out to a leaf strewn porch hung crookedly on its burnt hinges.

It looked like the standoff of a spaghetti western, Stiles thought. A hulking figure splattered with muck, which could only be Peter, snarled, elbow deep in the remains of one of the unfortunate hunters left guarding the house. Several spots along his hide looked singed, and one cut bled sluggishly black, though any other injury looked already healed. At his side, crouched low, Isaac snarled.

Directly in front of the porch, her back to Stiles as she held the werewolves under the eye of her shotgun, Kate Argent stood. “I should have put you down when I heard you were in a coma.” Stiles could hear the sneer in her voice, though he couldn’t see more than the blonde back of her head. “Screw procedure and incrimination, it would have been a mercy killing-”

Derek flung himself off of Stiles’s supporting shoulder with a roar, eyes flaring blue. Kate had just enough time to shift her weight to turn around, before he landed claws first into her back. 

She might have fought, the gun in her hand firing a few rounds into the air before it clicked into frantic silence. She might have tried to slam the butt of the now useless gun into the side of Derek’s head, had Isaac not collided with her arm, teeth burying in an artery with a sickening crunch. She might have screamed then, the sound lost in gurgling silence before the alpha wolf even reached her.

She might have. But Stiles will always maintain, forcibly, that she was dead before she hit the ground. Any other fate left him tasting bile in the back of his throat.

It was Isaac who found him curled up on the ashy porch. His nose wrinkled at the stench of vomit, but he crouched down in front of his friend. 

“Are you all-right?” he asked.

“Are you?! You just-” Stiles pressed his head between his knees, breath ragged. “Just give me a few minutes to finish hyperventilating.”

Isaac scratched his cheek, grimacing at the blood caked under his nails. He scrubbed a bit harder when the caked mass around his mouth refused to be wiped away, before giving it up as a lost cause. The lower half of his face, neck, and chest were stained a rusty brown, and nothing short of a hose and scrub brush would get the gore washed away. Isaac was half way through picking his nails clean, when his friend uncurled. 

“That was-” Stiles inhaled through his nose and out through his mouth. “I am never going to be able to watch those nature documentaries about lions in the savannah again.”

Isaac reached over to pat his shoulder, but paused when Stiles flinched back. His fingers curled under his palm, and drew back to his chest apologetically. 

“Dude, don't make that face, I'm- it's-” Stiles's hand flailed, half way between running over what remaining hair his buzz cut afforded him and half way to gesticulating at the tacky drying blood splashed across the werewolf’s person. He punched the other boy in the arm, perhaps a bit too forcefully. “It’s fine! We’re fine. Are you fine?”

Isaac quirked a quick thin smile. “I'm glad you're all right,” he said, bloody hands still clutched close to his chest. “When the hunters started firing their guns- and that lady had hers pointed at us,and-” Curls shadowed his face as he ducked his head. “I'm glad you're all right,” he repeated. 

“Dude, I’m fine.” Stiles’s voice was softer than before. “But are you? You just- I mean, I’ve sat through my dad talking officers through their first- you know it doesn’t happen often, but police officers do use the guns they carry sometimes, and there was that kidnapping thing a few years back when I used to get baby sat at the precinct, and Deputy Sherrie was there for it, and-“ He wiggled in a complicated motion of emotion. “Just- are you okay?”

“It,” Isaac frowned at his palm. “It didn’t feel like I was doing something wrong. She was hurting my pack- hurt Derek already. I guess I just saw red and jumped at her.” He met Stiles’s eye. “But I’m not, like, guilty or anything that I helped kill her.” His gaze turned confused and pleading. “Is that bad?”

Stiles shrugged, hands flailing around his sides too quickly to hide their slight tremble. “I dunno, but she totally was a psycho. Who keeps people in the basement like a cutscene from Saw? Seriously.”

Stiles shook himself to his feet, Isaac hovering near, but wary to lend a hand.

Away from their corner of the porch stood Derek. His face was more pale than usual, and he gazed unseeing at the blonde body at his feet. His arms crossed over his chest as if protecting himself from the cold, heedless of the blood coating him like a Pollock painting. The hands clutching his upper arms gripped white knuckled, but any bruises that formed healed before coloring. 

Peter, less furry and cleaned of blood, stalked closer to him. His pants were covered in dirt, from where he had hid them in the loan before storming the house in his alpha form, and half the buttons were undone on his shirt. In his arms he carried a peat coat, which he shook free of leaves, before throwing around his nephew’s back, drawing it closed over his bare chest with a rough jerk. His hands lingered on the other’s shoulders as he stared straight into his nephew’s eyes, murmuring something too softly for Stiles to hear.

Derek nodded in reply to whatever was said, eyes still fixed on the ground, though he did move one hand to hold the coat closed over his chest. 

Isaac and Stiles had already opened the back of the jeep to find a tarp for the werewolf to sit on and not stain the seats, by the time Peter directed Derek to the passenger seat. Stiles moaned quietly about having to get the car reupholstered, but helped buckle the wolf in anyway. Isaac cuddled in the back seat on a blue sheet of plastic, careful not to let his dirty feet up onto the seat.

Peter slammed the back door to the jeep behind his betas.

Stiles, fumbling with the keys in the ignition looked through the window at him. “Aren’t you coming?”

“Go back to the den,” Peter said.

Stiles scowled. “What about you?”

“I am going to clean up this mess.” He jerked his head to indicate the house. “Then call the police, like the concerned citizen that I am.” 

He affected a light voice dripping with dramatic airs. “I was so shocked when I came to visit the site of my family’s old home, only to find everyone dead! It must have been an animal attack- maybe they kept hunting dogs that went feral? It didn’t look like these hunters, if that’s even what they were, knew how to take care of an animal. Maybe they had those fancy wolf-dog hybrids that they breed in puppy mills in northern California? Those kinds of canines need special care, otherwise they’ll defend themselves with prejudice.”

He smirked when his innocent expression failed to convince the teenager. 

“Just go,” he murmured, tone more genuine. “I’ll be back soon.”

Stiles didn’t believe him, but, with a sidelong glance at the exhausted figures filling his car, started the engine anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N:  
> Not much to say for this chapter other than it took me like three months to write, because procrastination.


	14. Isaac

Isaac no longer worked late shifts in the graveyard, but he still found himself cutting through the back woods on his way home. The noon sun shone overhead, streaming through his fingers, which were arched back in a neck cracking stretch. He didn't miss his job, the usual benefit of cash having gone to his father, and Alpha let him plant flowers in the yard, so he still was able to enjoy gardening. 

Not that he had much free time for that, what with school. Alpha insisted on his ‘utilizing his full potential’ in classes, and ‘becoming a respectable member of society’, so the teen found himself more concerned with homework than he had been in the past. 

“The Hale pack has lived in Beacon Hills for generations,” he had said. “Keeping a low profile helps if the locals like you.”

Also there was the whole being a werewolf thing, which was kinda like having a puppy, only he was the puppy and the person training the puppy at the same time. Derek had started taking Isaac into the preserve to run him through lessons on shifting and conditioning his senses, now that the threat of hunters had lessened. Alpha came occasionally along, saying that just because the hunters were laying low didn't mean they should be less cautious. 

Isaac didn't really know what he meant by that, but Stiles said something about his dad still looking into the fire, and the FBI getting involved in the case, so it sounded really important. 

The Sheriff had even stopped by the pack’s den earlier that week, though what he discussed with the alpha, Isaac didn’t know, as he had been sent off into the woods to dissuade eavesdropping. 

The headlines in the paper, and on the news, from what he gathered, only touched the tip of the iceberg. Though he supposed the declaration of ‘ARGENT IMPLICATED IN ARSON INVESTIGATION ONGOING’ was pretty vague. He didn’t even know they subscribed to the Beacon Hills Chronicle, but Alpha had bought several copies with that headline, and announced over dinner that he was seriously considering framing one to display in the living room.

Derek hadn’t said much in response to that, though Derek hadn’t really said much outside of training in the woods and upkeep of the house, since his kidnapping at the hands of those Argent hunters. Isaac wanted to bring it up, but every time he tried, his mouth would sew itself shut. It wasn’t his place anyway. 

Still, the sun was warm against his skin, and the scents of loam and pine tickled his nose when he breathed in. His pack was waiting for him safe at home, and Stiles invited him over to play video games later that night. 

Life was good.  
…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> …  
> A/N:  
> Feb 19 newspaper reports Kate as murderer  
> Yes! Done! Now onto the fun sequel! Will probably start posting after November.


End file.
